PROCEEDINGS of the EIGHTH 
CONFERENCE FOR EDa 
CATION IN THE SOUTH 




Class. 
Book. 



PRESENTED BY 



PROCEEDINGS of the EIGHTH 
CONFERENCE FOR EDU- 
CATION IN THE SOUTH 



COLUMBIA, S.C. 
APRIL 26-28, 1905 



JL 



ISSUED BY THE COMMITTEE ON PUBLICATION 

ROOM 1805, No. 54 WILLIAM STREET, NEW YORK CITY. 1905 






presses oi" 

the state company 

colttm:bxa, s. c. 



Gift 

Publisher 

17 Ap'06 



kSSEY KHPORTING COMPANY, 
A XLANX A , G A • 



CONTENTS 

OPENING SESSION. page 

Address of Welcome. By Gov. D. C. Heyward i 

Response. By Robert C. Ogden 5 

Annual Address of the President. By Robert C. Ogden 7 

A Southern Interpretation of the Conference. By George H. 

Denny 15 

RECEPTION AT THE CAPITOL 22 

EXERCISES AT THE SOUTH CAROLINA COLLEGE. 

Address. By Robert C. Ogden 23 

Address. By Seth Low 25 

Address. By St. Clair McKelway. 29 

Address. By Edwin A. Alderman 32 

RECEPTION AT THE SOUTH CAROLINA COLLEGE . . . . . 2>7 

THURSDAY MORNING SESSION. 

SUPERINTENDENTS' MEETING. 

Address. By S. A. Mynders 38 

Model Rural Schools. By W. B. Merritt 39 

5"ummer Schools and District Local Taxation. By O. B. Martin. 40 

Rural School Libraries. By J. Y. Joyner 44 

Improvements in Louisiana. By J. B. Aszvell 50 

Recent School Legislation in Texas. By R. B. Cousins . . .51 
Campaign for School Taxation. By J. H. Hineman . . . .55 

Teaching of Agriculture in the Public Schools. By A. C. True . 57 
Announcement of Committees 68 

THURSDAY EVENING SESSION. 

The High School in the Public School System. By John H. 

Phillips 69 

Some Arguments for Compulsory Education. By W. H. Hand . . 77 
The Indian Character Revealed in Music. By Natalie Curtis. . 83 
Some Phases of Educational History in New York. By Seth Lozv 86 



Conference for Education in the South 
FRIDAY MORNING SESSION. 



BUSINESS. 



Report of Committee on Resolutions. By S. C. Mitchell. . . .95 
Report of Committee on Nominations. By Edwin A. Alderman. . 96 

Election of President .97 

Election of Other Officers 98 

INVITATIONS FOR THE NEXT CONFERENCE. 

Address. By J. D. Murphy, of Asheville, N. C 99 

Address. By R. B. Cousins, of Austin, Texas 102 

Address. By Charles D. Mclver, of Greensboro, N. C 104 

Address. By Burris A. Jenkins, of Lexington, Ky 105 

School Supervision. By John W. Abercronihie 108 

Public Order and the Public Schools. By G. A. Gordon.' . .114 

EXCURSION AND RECEPTION AT THE WOMAN'S PRESBY- 
TERIAN COLLEGE 122 

VISITS TO LOCAL INSTITUTIONS .123 

FRIDAY EVENING SESSION. 

The Movement for Local Taxation in the Carolinas. By John 

H. Small 124 

Sectional Misapprehensions. By Ernest H. Abbott . . . .130 

Address. By Edzvard M. She par d . .137 

The South and the School. By S. C. Mitchell. .... .148 

Address. By Arthur Kinsolving ......... 153 

Address. By Samuel Crothers 154 

Address. By St. Clair McKelway 157 

Address. By A. S. Draper 159 

Address. By Gov. D. C. Heyzvard 161 

Address. By Edwin A. Alderman 163 



Conference for Education in 
the South 

COLUMBIA MEETING, 1905 



OPENING SESSION 



Wednesday Evening, April 26. 

The Eighth Annual Conference for Education in the South met 
in the Columbia Theatre of Columbia, S. C, on Wednesday, April 
26, at 8 o'clock p. m. The Conference was called to order by Mr. 
E. S. Dreher, Superintendent of the Columbia City Schools and 
Chairman of the Reception Committee appointed by the Chamber 
of Commerce.* Mr. Dreher presented the Hon. D. C. Heyward, 
Governor of South Carolina, who delivered an address of welcome 
as follows : 

Governor D. C. Heyward. 

Mr. Chairman, Members of the Conference, Ladies and Gentlemen: 
One year ago an official invitation was extended to you by 
the city of Columbia and by the State of South Carolina to hold 
your Eighth Annual Session in this city. This invitation was gra- 
ciously accepted, and it is my privilege tonight, in the same spirit. 



*The Reception Committee were Superintendent E. S. Drelier, Mayor T. 
Hasell Gibbes, Mr. O. B. Martin, State Superintendent of Education ; Mr. J. J. 
McMahan, former State Superintendent of Education ; Capt. W. E. Gonzales, 
Editor of The State; Mr. E. J. Watson, Commissioner of Immigration and 
Commerce; Mr. T. S. Bryan, Trustee of several Educational Institutions in 
Columbia ; Dr. G. A. Wauchope and Professor Patterson Wardlaw, of the 
South Carolina College Faculty. This Committee met the party of Northern 
visitors at the State line and, returning with them to Columbia, escorted them 
to carriages that were in waiting there to convey them to their several places 
of entertainment. 



2 Conference for Education in the South 

to bid you a hearty, cordial and sincere welcome to Columbia and 
to South Carolina. 

We invited you in all sincerity, not only because we desired the 
pleasure of your presence, but because we felt that great and lasting 
good would be done to our educational interests as the result of your 
deliberations. I have always been proud of Columbia, and since I 
have resided here I have felt even greater pride in our capital city. 
By the achievements which she has wrought for herself she has 
contributed to the welfare of our State, and by securing this notable 
gathering of distinguished educators she has given signal evidence 
of her real work for the development of our best interests. I am 
commissioned tonight — a pleasure it is — in behalf of the people of 
this State, and in behalf of the hospitable people of this city, to bid 
you welcome. 

Your Conference was first organized upon Southern soil with the 
avowed purpose of increasing interest in education in the South. 
Had this distinguished body come here upon any mission they 
would be welcome; but they are doubly welcome when they come 
in behalf of a cause so vital to our best interests, and so indispensable 
to the welfare of our commonwealth and the cause in which we have 
always exerted our best endeavors. 

To you, Mr. President, and your coworkers from the North, who 
yearly make this pilgrimage to the South, to you I extend a Southern 
welcome, with all the warmth and hospitality which belongs by 
inherent right to such greeting. We are here to meet, to mingle 
together as brethren and friends, with one common purpose, the 
highest which can engage the thoughts of the people. We of the 
South have our problems — problems great and difficult of solution ; 
but we have never sought to shirk or evade these problems, and we 
will never seek to shirk or evade them in the years which lie before 
us. We will always strive on and hope for the best. With the great 
growth of our great country some problems which were once pecu- 
liarly Southern have now become problems for the nation. You, 
too, have your problems which, some day, on account of great in- 
dustrial and commercial growth, will become our problems also. 
The best solution of any problem which confronts a people is the 
education of their children. And, therefore, it is most fitting that 
we of the North and of the South meet together as Americans, to 
discuss and to confer in regard to these higher things which tend to 



Governor D. C. Heyward 3 

elevate humanity, to uplift our citizenship, and to make permanent 
and secure the true foundations upon which this republic is builded. 
The education of the masses means wealth for the republic. The 
enlightenment of the people in a government by the people is the 
best and surest guarantee of liberty for the people. 

It has been well and truly said that "if we work upon marble, it 
will perish ; if we work upon brass, time will erase it ; if we erect 
monuments, they will crumble into dust; but if we work upon im- 
mortal minds, if we imbue them with justice and truth, with the fear 
of God and the love of their fellowmen, then, we write upon these 
tablets something which will brighten to all eternity." 

Today, throughout the entire South, the school bell is ringing. It 
rings from the university on the hill and it rings from the little 
schools by the roadside, and to you teachers who are present here 
this evening from our sister States of the South, and from every 
portion of our own State, in welcoming you, I wish to take this 
opportunity also to congratulate you upon the great work which you 
have done. No people in the same length of time, under the same 
conditions, have done the same work that the educators of the South 
have done for education among the masses of the people during the 
past forty years. In this work they have been accorded loyal sup- 
port by the people. In their days of poverty, and in their days of 
prosperity the taxpayers of the South have ever shown a readiness 
and a willingness to tax themselves to support schools, not only for 
their own children — the white children of the South — but schools 
for the children of another and a dependent race. Though often 
misunderstood, their hearts have never failed them. They have 
always looked onward, forward, and never backward, and today, in 
university and in college, in graded school and in common school, 
in better teachers, and in longer terms, in a happy, contented and 
prosperous people, aye, in smiling fields and growing cities, we can 
see the result of their courage and their devotion. 

In welcoming you to South Carolina, I welcome you, my friends, 
to a State which has ever taken a deep and abiding interest in the 
cause in which you are enlisted. With us the modern school stands 
by the college of a century. From the earliest history of our State 
our people have prized learning and cultivation. Before the Revolu- 
tion we sent our sons to Oxford and to Cambridge. Immediately 
after the Revolution we built colleges and inaugurated public schools. 



4 Conference for Education in the South 

The first library in America to be supported in any degree at public 
expense was that established in Charleston in 1698. But I feel, my 
friends, that it requires no argument at my hands to convince you 
that our people have always taken an interest in education. The very 
fact I have just stated, that before we had colleges of our own we 
sent our sons abroad, and the further fact that almost within sound 
of my voice tonight stands the South Carolina College, a hundred 
years old and over — this will show you the spirit that animated our 
ancestors. 

As to what we are doing for education today, I have but to point 
you to the colleges and the schools of our State ; for women the State 
supports Winthrop College, and for men it supports South Carolina 
College, the Citadel and Clemson. The religious sentiment of the 
State supports a number of colleges which are all doing good work. 
In addition, we have a number of private colleges, many well en- 
dowed, also doing good work, and beneath it all, as a foundation, we 
have a growing system of graded and common schools. The Con- 
stitution of our State requires that the General Assembly shall 
provide a liberal system of free public schools for every child be- 
tween the ages of six and twenty-one, and our system levies for 
educational purposes an annual tax which exceeds one half of the 
tax for general purposes. With us the fight to allow school districts 
to tax themselves has already been won, and we are now extending 
the battle lines to the districts themselves, four hundred of which 
have already availed themselves of that privilege. Last year we 
built one hundred and seventy schoolhouses in this State, and we im- 
proved numbers of others. We established five hundred libraries. 
Twenty-five hundred of our teachers attended Summer Schools in 
order that they might better equip themselves for their great work. 
My friends, it requires no prophet to foretell that, should we again, 
within the next few years, have the pleasure of welcoming you within 
the confines of South Carolina, you will behold a wonderful develop- 
ment in our industrial and educational forces. 

I trust that you will pardon this digression and that it may prove 
to you the interest which we take in you and in your work, and 
may add even greater warmth to the welcome which is yours. And 
now, in behalf of every college and every school in this State, in 
behalf of the great cause which you represent, in behalf of the people 
of South Carolina, and in behalf of the hospitable people of Columbia 



Robert C. Ogden 5 

especially, I bid you, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to South Caro- 
lina. 

In response to the address of welcome, President Robert C. Ogden 
of the Conference for Education in the South, after receiving a tre- 
mendous ovation,' said : 

Mr. Chairman, Your Excellency, representatives of the institutions 
of learning, of the commercial bodies that have united in giving 
oMcial zvelcome to the Conference for Education in the South, 
the teachers of this State, and the hospitable citizens of this city: 

It is no easy task to respond in fitting terms to the welcome ex- 
pressions that have come from the Chief Executive of your State, 
who has so gracefully welcomed on your behalf the strangers that 
are within your gates today. Strangers? The word is unfortunate, 
for the Conference for Education in the South is no stranger here. 
Although a year has passed, it seems but yesterday when we were 
within your borders ; pausing by the wayside for the delightful ex- 
perience furnished us by Winthrop College, at Rock Hill, the Execu- 
tive of your State came and placed in our hands the official invitation 
of your Legislature, to which he had been pleased to affix his gracious 
approval, that the Conference should assemble here this year. Our 
hearts immediately accepted the sincerity and earnestness of the invi- 
tation and all were greatly pleased when our Executive Committee 
later confirmed on our behalf the universal opinion that we should 
be most happy to visit Columbia the next year. 

We think the intervening year has been filled with great experi- 
ences for all of us, and most especially concerning the objects for 
which this Conference for Education stands. This is not merely a 
conference for education. Would that I had the ability to reproduce 
here the words that men from all over the southland have formulated 
with which to express the spirit and genius of this organization, 
that it might thus be felt as a force uniting together the North and 
the South. Oh that the time would come, and it will come surely, 
when we will not use those words, "North and South." But it is 
through the genius of the patriotic spirit that we are weaving the 
hearts of this whole country into a single fabric bearing the rich 
pattern of patriotism that shall ere long be more perfectly worked out 
than ever before, a pattern that all shall love and admire, for each 
shall have a part in the weaving. 



6 Conference for Education in the South 

We are here as the Conference for Education in the South to 
express, not only our recognition of and our gratitude for the invita- 
tion that came to us, but also to acknowledge that we owe an added 
personal debt to Governor Heyward for making us more clearly un- 
derstand the educational conditions existing in South Carolina. We 
have known something of them ; we have heard of the special circum- 
stances that exist in the educational interests of your State, but it has 
remained for us as a body to be instructed and informed by this 
lucid statement of your representative, gladly claimed by all as a 
member of the Conference. Therefore, on behalf of your fellow- 
members, I desire to emphasize again our thanks for your most 
excellent statement concerning local educational conditions. 

It was my very great desire to treat this Conference and the objects 
for which it stands as they are related to the interests of the South 
and of the country ; but from every direction demand has come for a 
statement concerning the general movement for which the Con- 
ference for Education stands and of which it is a part ; and, therefore, 
in a more formal way but with entirely informal spirit, I shall en- 
deavor to say something on the points upon which information is 
desired by so many in this audience that are for the first time in 
attendance upon the Conference. 



THE PRESIDENT'S ANNUAL ADDRESS 

By command, of the Executive Committee, the Eighth Annual 
Conference for Education in the South is now convened at the State 
capital of South Carolina in response to the gracious invitations of 
the executive, educational and legislative authorities of the State, 
the municipality of Columbia, and various commercial and educa- 
tional organizations and institutions. 

Speaking officially on behalf of the Conference, and more especially 
to any that are present at its sessions for the first time, I would say 
that it is a spiritual more than an organic fraternity. Everyone is 
welcome to its sessions. Sympathetic accord has always marked its 
proceedings so thoroughly that it has never, as yet, been found 
needful to define the qualifications of its voters. In a very real sense 
it is a popular body without official relation, either subjective or 
objective, to any other organization. It admits no authority save 
intelligent public opinion and exercises no control save that freely 
accorded by the intelligent sympathy of such good people as believe 
in and advocate the inherent right and urgent need of universal 
education. 

This Conference has always been essentially ideal but thoroughly 
practical. Its spiritual power is dynamic through the constructive 
force of faith in divine and human righteousness as controlling ele- 
ments of the best national progress. No purely material interests 
have ever found standing ground in the Conference convocations. 
Personal ambitions have not ventured to intrude upon its borders. 
It has no fads to promote, no patronage to dispense, no friends to 
reward, no enemies to punish, no bounty of popular applause to be- 
stow, no compensations to award save such as may come to its 
individual servants and helpers in the effort for the enrichment of 
other lives through social betterment by the means of higher intel- 
ligence. 

Great hopes assemble here, enshrined in hearts that are enlarged 
in affection toward the land that is ours for life and love and service. 
Eager minds gather here for the instruction imparted by trained edu- 
cators, publicists and students of contemporary social conditions. 
In my opinion it would be difficult to collect a company of men and 



8 , Conference for Education in the South 

women with souls more keenly attuned to and expectant of the key- 
note that will inspire the step of progress to catch the cadence and 
mark the rhythm of national idealism, than the audience here as- 
sembled. 

The cumulative facts of the seven past years bear witness to the 
accuracy of this estimate of the character of the Conference. Present 
conditions warrant the prophecy that this year will add another link 
to the golden chain, will witness no pause in forward movement, 
nor decline in expanding quality. 

Although this Conference has no organic relation to any official 
educational body or authority, it yet has a very deep community of 
interest with 

The Southern Education Board, 

The General Education Board, 
and in a lesser degree with 

The Board of Trustees of the Peabody Fund, 

The Board of Trustees of the Slater Fund. 

These several Boards are so thoroughly coordinated and sym- 
pathetic that every facility created by any is at the command of each 
and the commonage of aim is so perfect that waste by duplication or 
competition is impossible. 

To Mr. Murphy's many friends, undoubtedly counted by hundreds 
in this audience, I bring from an interview with him night before last 
the pathos of his sadness because he could not be with us here. If 
they were not present here, and so immediately within the range of 
my voice, I would say something about the group of philosophical 
statesmen that are associated in these operations. They represent 
ideas that are regnant in the Southern heart. Their power inspires 
a general enthusiasm, and among this collection of Americans, of 
whom the whole country may be proud and to whom it owes a debt 
of gratitude which will never be fully expressed and cannot be paid, 
prominently stands Mr. Edgar Gardner Murphy, of Alabama. 

The Peabody Board, with its beneficent work for general education 
in the South, has been well known for a generation, and the Slater 
Board in its service to negro education for more than twenty years. 
To these allied organizations the Hon. J. L. M. Curry gave over 
twenty of the rich and mature years of his life in devoted labor as 
general agent. Concerning the other two, the Southern Educational 
Board and the General Education Board, information is again re- 



Robert C. Ogden g 

quested as a part of the burden of your chairman's opening remarks. 
To former attendants at the Conference the annual monotone of his- 
toric explanation at this point must be dreary enough — its infliction 
a means of grace, profitable indeed if thereby patience shall have its 
perfect work. But the Conference and the two Boards, although 
separately defined, must be considered together, so intimate is their 
relation to the renascence of education in the Southern States during 
the last few years. 

The character of the Conference has already been considered at 
some length, but to answer the requests for information some his- 
toric facts are needed.' It passed the three earlier years of its life 
in the calm and beautiful repose of Capon Springs. Earnest spirit, 
strong expression and large intelligence marked the assemblies of 
these early years, but the conditions were rather academic than ag- 
gressive. Nevertheless the seed that was sown there fell upon 
prepared ground, took deep root, and later brought forth much fruit. 
With the fourth year at Winston-Salem the Conference found itself. 
The ringing words of Curry, Dabney, Dickerman, Aycock, Mclver, 
and others, presented a panorama of appealing conditions that 
kindled a flame of earnestness which burns with more warmth and 
brilliance each passing year. At Winston-Salem in 1901 the thought 
of the Southern Education Board took form. In November of that 
year it was created under most interesting circumstances. Six of the 
eight original members were Southern men by birth or residence. 
By simple and forceful methods a systematic campaign for education 
was inaugurated that stretched from the Potomac to beyond the 
Mississippi, and from the Ohio to the seaboard. This Board has no 
money to give. It is simply the evangel of the public school, carrying 
forward persistently a campaign for popular education, striving to 
awaken in the minds, especially of rural communities, a knowledge 
of educational needs, a longing for improved conditions and a will- 
ingness to pay by contribution, taxation, or both, for the advantages 
which are the right of American childhood. In this appeal no voice 
other than that of Southern men has been heard. 

The General Education Board is a logical sequence in this educa- 
tional evolution. It has a broad Congressional charter, holds such 
money as may come to it for distribution as trustees of the donors. 
It is a bureau of information concerning all institutions in the South 
of everv Sfrade and class, for white or nesrro, solicitine financial 



lo Conference for Education in the South 

assistance in the North. In this regard it has been the protector of 
donors from appeals of doubtful character, and has given vast inspi- 
ration and encouragement to worthy institutions. The office is a 
center of critical study of educational conditions, assembling informa- 
tion from only the most reliable sources, and through its own repre- 
sentatives making exhaustive and comprehensive first-hand studies 
by States. 

Combined, these Boards make a perfect sphere, each essential to 
the other, neither capable of complete operation within itself. Social 
service to the individual through more abundant life, to the State 
through the child, is the axis of the sphere; while the Conference 
cieates the atmosphere in which the sphere revolves. 

Bold, bare, brief, is this statement of the threefold life about which 
information is desired. Starting at this point the story is a most 
instructive, interesting and inspiring narrative of intellectual, 
spiritual and also physical life. 

Most beautiful and fitting it is that this Conference meets while 
many of us are inspired by Easter thoughts of life. The community 
of shadow makes the kinship of the world ; and the fellowship of 
hope in spiritual life fills the universe with sunshine. All nature, 
through bursting bud, expanding leaf, beautiful blossom, is telling 
the story of new creation. Let us bring into our fellowship here the 
lessons of rich and bountiful nature and of sacred story as an in- 
creasing power and grace of inspiration. 

And also taking the thought from the title page of the Virginia 
educational campaign book, let us catch a sacred picture and fix it 
in our mind as text and emblem for all our proceedings. It reads : 

"At that hour came the disciples unto Jesus saying, who then is the 
greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven? And he called unto him a 
little child and set him in the midst of them." 

It is the leadership of the child that we follow here. Inspiring this 
great company more than curiosity, possible entertainment or social 
fellowship — is the interest of the child. And it was just the prepara- 
tion of this pervasive influence that awaited the advent of the new 
movement for education which was infolded in the triple alliance of 
the Conference and the two Boards. 

This movement came, as we say in trite phrase, at the psychological 
moment. Throughout this Southland, isolated and lonely, many 
able, thoughtful, well-informed and solitary souls were brooding over 



Robert C. Ogden ii 

the needy conditions of certain localities with which experience had 
made them painfully familiar. And with the perception of need 
was associated a conscious helplessness and vague, indefinite hopefu-l- 
ness. 

Nor was this condition of mind solely confined to the isolated and 
obscure. Men of large public affairs, women socially prominent, 
were both equally anxious and sadly doubtful. Here a voice had 
been raised, there a little local effort had started, and beyong this the 
prophets were beginning both persuasion and prevision. 

Then followed an awakening of the earnest and anxious thinkers. 
A strength of association was promptly created. Symptoms of many 
sorts indicated the educational epiphany that has commanded the 
admiration and respect of educators throughout the land, the en- 
couragement of progressive citizens, the interest of statesmen. 

Certain facts that stand out in bold relief may be briefly outlined. 

Accurate knowledge of conditions. It is an ungracious, almost 
thankless, task to diagnose unpleasant facts for public instruction. 
Teaching upon such subjects by comparison is forbidding because 
odious. This is especially so when the case is simply one of mis- 
fortune and not mainly of political delinquency. Then, too, there is 
provocation , and confusion to the lay mind in masses of statistical 
figures. But this study has been the work of Southern men and the 
United States Bureau of Education under the guidance of its honored 
and venerable head, the faithful, devoted and sympathetic friend 
of education in the South. No present excuse exists for want of 
knowledge concerning the conditions of education in any Southern 
State. 

Local taxation for education has made great progress, notably in 
Alabama, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Tennessee. The 
Constitution of the State of Georgia has been so amended as to 
facilitate local taxation for schools. The increase of public appro- 
priations both through' State and the local tax, for education, has 
aggregated many millions of dollars. 

New schoolhouses by hundreds, perhaps thousands, have replaced 
others that were lacking in comfort, space and equipment. Hundreds 
of inadequate schools have been consolidated and transportation has 
been supplied to scholars that have been incomrnoded by the changed 
conditions. School terms have been greatly lengthened, the qualifi- 
cations of teachers improved, and compensation increased to meet 
the longer term and better service. 



12 Conference for Education in the South 

Laws against nepotism in educational patronage have been passed 
and thus a beginning has been made in the removal of a corrupt and 
debasing influence upon education. This is an incident in the divorce 
of public education from politics— an end most devoutly to be desired. 

Perhaps the most encouraging single element of progress is found 
in the formation of local and State organizations of citizens and 
educators for the promotion of public interest in education. No 
reflection upon other States is implied in mention of the recently- 
organized Cooperative Education Commission of Virginia, of which 
Dr. S. C. Mitchell, now present in this audience, is president, with 
Governor Montague as chairman of the executive committee. Every 
man and woman interested in the purpose for which the Conference 
stands should secure and carefully read, ponder and inwardly digest 
the campaign pamphlet recently issued by the Commission, entitled 
"Universal Education." It is an arsenal of argument, a storehouse 
of facts, a layman's teacher, a teacher's inspiration, a gospel for edu- 
cational evangelists. In the cities of Virginia large audiences of the 
best people have been assembled by the Commission to wait upon 
the teachings of men whose souls are awake to the needs of the 
children and whose tongues have been touched with the holy fire 
from the altar of public service. Such meetings have been held else- 
where with success and power. But Virginia's leadership is excep- 
tional in persistence and thoroughness. Would that this Conference 
had the power to so enliven the minds and hearts of all delegates 
from other States that they could not be satisfied until, imitating 
Virginia, they also should have a "Cooperative Education Commis- 
sion." If interested, consult the Campaign Committee of the South- 
ern Education Board concerning the ways and means. 

This rough sketch, crude and hasty, would be sadly incomplete 
did it fail to notice the present relation to popular education of the 
universities and colleges — the higher institutions of learning gener- 
ally. No doubtful curiosity or suspicion lurks in the background ; 
no academic seclusion, no intellectual superiority, no cloistered ex- 
clusiveness now divides higher from popular education in the South. 
The true democracy of knowledge has asserted itself and the new 
ideals of the new age are accepted. The prepared material for the 
university of the future will increasingly be the product of the public 
high school and the world-demand will be for men in ordinary voca- 
tions whose actions will be based upon thought. Thus on either 



Robert C. Ogden 13 

hand the university takes toll from progress and the popular claim 
made upon college and university is right nobly recognized. 

This fragmentary recitation would not have been made but for 
the absence by reason of sickness of Mr. Edgar Gardner Murphy, 
Executive Secretary of the Southern Education Board, who was 
expected to present a narrative that would cover the operation of 
the Boards. It was thus expected to omit on this occasion the reports 
of the various field directors and agents. How far the former prac- 
tice will prevail will appear as the Conference proceeds. 

Anyone desiring a critical review of the genesis of "The Edvtca- 
tional Movement in the South" should obtain from the United States 
Bureau of Education the pamphlet containing Chapter VIII of the 
Commission's Report for 1903. Testimony to the importance of the 
Conference and the Boards is found in the fact that the State Super- 
intendents of Education joined in a meeting with the Campaign Com- 
mittee of the Southern Board in this city yesterday, in the fact that 
they will control the morning session tomorrow, and in the further 
fact that distinguished Governors and the official educational heads 
of the various State Bureaus have cordially welcomed such aid arid 
cooperation as both Conference and Boards can give. 

If the story of these States in matters of education during the last 
four years could be written in detail and read in the perspective of 
former years, it would have the charm of romance or fairyland. But 
the undone margin is so great that even at the present rate of 
progress long years must pass before even an approximate ideal is 
reached. The task of giving to every child in this land, American or 
foreign born, a good English education, and the enactment and 
enforcement of compulsory education laws must be fulfilled. It is 
not within the proper scope of this discussion to propose a reply to 
the question thus raised. The issue is imminent. In the cause repre- 
sented here a group of statesmen are enlisted, I verily believe en- 
listed for life, and to them is committed the prieparation of some 
feasible, just and righteous plan that will meet popular endorsement. 

Absolute publicity in action and simplicity of purpose has marked 
the entire history of this Conference from the beginning, and yet 
some curious popular inaccuracies concerning it have become current. 
The Conference has never assumed a defensive attitude. Its record 
is before the country for judgment upon its merits. Too busy with 
constructive public service, it gives neither thought nor care to con- 
troversy. 

2— c. E. 



14 Conference for Education in the South 

Prominent among the errors is the notion that the Conference 
makes appropriations for the aid of education. The Conference has 
always been insolvent. Never owned a dollar, if its debts were paid. 
It lives upon the bounty of its friends and its hosts. Therefore, the 
oft-repeated story of its gifts is inaccurate in all respects. 

Grateful for welcome and hospitality, some people from the North 
have attended the Conference from year to year. Out of the asso- 
ciations thus formed have grown sweet social ties that have broad- 
ened sympathies, enriched lives, and moulded sentiment for noble 
aims. But it is an entirely mistaken notion that this Conference is 
controlled from the North. There is now but one Northern name in 
the list of its officers, and whatever Northern element has been 
privileged to assist in "knitting the severed friendship up" has been 
enlisted in the work by that great and noble recruiting officer in the 
crusade of education, servant of God, friend of humanity, man of 
the South, man of the nation, honored in two continents, loved by all 
who knew his great heart, respected by all who came under the spell 
of his great intellect, Hon. J. L. M. Curry. The genius of the Con- 
ference was of the South, it remains in the South, and will hereafter 
even more completely find its whole life in the South. 

But on the other side of Mason and Dixon's line are men and 
women who will come at the bidding of the South, ready, willing, 
anxious to share in the service that is to make the Southland realize 
its great and noble possibilities more fully because of the progres- 
sive development born' of the broadening opportunity of enlarged 
prosperity. 

And now it is my great privilege to declare the Eighth Conference 
for Education in the South opened for development of the official 
program and the transaction of business. 

There has been ^prepared by official authority of the Conference a 
program. It is proper to say that this gavel is the only symbol of 
the presidential office. [Raising gavel.] When necessary to wield 
the gavel the President will cause it to make a noise ; but I know 
perfectly well, if the occasion requires the emphasis of noise by this 
gavel, with it will also come the sweet influence of the fact that a 
Virginia woman, known, honored and useful in educational matters 
in her home community, has sent this to the Conference with the 



George H. Denny 15 

message that it comes from trees that were grown in the old ceme- 
tery at Jamestown. That fact of itself will be sufficient in this 
audience to maintain order. So the emblem of authority and the 
weapon of discipline brings with it a beautiful influence of affec- 
tionate regard for the Conference combined with historic associations 
that the whole country loves, and especially the South honors. 

The opening features of the program prepared for us have been 
practically fulfilled as you will observe by the copies in your hands. 
It now remains for us to enjoy a very sentimental privilege, for I am 
very certain you will be glad to know that your honored Governor 
is an alumnus of the university over which the next speaker presides. 
I have the very great honor of introducing our friend, Dr. George 
H. Denny, President of Washington and Lee University. 

A SOUTHERN INTERPRETATION OF THE CONFERENCE 

Dr. Denny. 

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: 

I bring you greeting tonight from the quiet shades of a Virginia 
college campus ; from the parade ground made sacred by the memory 
and the services of Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson, the Mecca 
of Southern tradition and of Southern faith. I hope I may be par- 
doned, Mr. President, if I recall the fact that the institution which 
I represent was a charter member of this Conference, and gave to 
it in those days of lesser achievement its loyal support and sym- 
pathetic service. My distinguished predecessor. President William 
L. Wilson, counted it no small honor that he was permitted to share 
in establishing its larger and more influential career. For months 
after his physical strength had been shattered, and even when the 
curtain of life was already ringing down for him with its inevitable 
issue, he freely gave the sympathy of his great heart and the thought 
of his great mind to the men and women who through this Con- 
ference are serving their country, until he was laid to rest in the 
bosom of his native State almost under the shadow of the spot 
where this Conference was born. It is, therefore, a natural infer- 
ence that these considerations explain the opportunity presented me 
tonight to give you a Southern interpretation of the Conference for 
Education in which we are now engaged. 



1 6 Conference for Education in the South 

Let me say at the outset, Mr. President, that candor compels us to 
recognize the fact that various interpretations of these gatherings 
have found expression in the Southern press, on the Southern plat- 
form and by the Southern fireside. Some have interpreted them as 
nothing more than junketing expeditions, without steadfast purposes 
and without definite aim. The migratory character of the Confer- 
ence, its lack of close and formal organization, and its varied and 
varying composition, have inspired in those who subscribe to this 
faith a feeling of doubt and uncertainty concerning the seriousness 
of its object and the stability of its fortunes. Thus we find that in 
certain quarters what may be termed the "caravan" conception 
is prominent and insistent. Others have characterized this Con- 
ference as a well-intended but misdirected effort on the part of 
certain gentlemen in other sections of the country to impose upon 
the people of the South certain peculiar views which are alien to 
what is best in Southern tradition and Southern thought. It has 
been asserted that such a movement, dominated by such thought and 
such purpose, necessarily imperils the integrity of long-cherished 
ideals and fundamental convictions in society, in politics and in 
education. 

This school of critics will be found, upon close investigation, to 
include very largely that class of people whose attitude toward all 
progressive movements is usually one of stolid stoicism and of 
passive futility. Here will be found the man who fritters away the 
hours in vain lament or in striving to erect monuments to past 
achievement and to former greatness. Here will be found the man 
who still nurses the scar of the conflict that has vanished and the pang 
of hope deferred. Here will be found the man who continues to live 
in the past tenses of the subjunctive mood, and who expresses him- 
self in the language of the unreal wish or of unfulfilled duties. Here 
will be found the man who would stir the ashes of an ancient feud, 
who would dig up the bones of the dead past, who would pass his 
cup of sorrows to others. Here will be found the man who always 
has an eye to pity, but has not learned the charm and the exhilaration 
of stretching forth an arm to save. Here will be found the man who 
loves to use the club of sarcasm or the rapier of ridicule, when the 
language of honest recognition and honest appreciation of what has 
been done, and of honest sympathy with what is sought to be accom- 
plished, would mark him a good citizen and a patriot. 



George H. Denny 17 

There are other interpretations of these Conferences, however, of 
a constructive character, which are apparently gathering a wider in- 
fluence and exerting a more noteworthy power over our Southern 
life and Southern thought. This second group of interpretations 
reveals the more inspiring note of optimism. It makes us feel the 
pulse of sympathetic action and of quickening power. Some are 
declaring that this annual Conference is the largest event which has 
occurred in this generation. Others regard it as the greatest popular 
movement of the time, destined to shape the history of the epoch. 
Others still characterize it as the most significant achievement in the 
history of the reunited country, welding together the North and 
the South, until men are once more beginning to write nation in 
capitals and section in common. 

Here will be found the man who has faith in his fellowmen, who 
desires to exemplify the ideal of social service, and to reveal the 
strength and beauty of an abundant career. Here will be found the 
man who enjoys the great-hearted courage, the unquestionable hope 
and the superabounding energy of a fresh and unexhausted life. 
Here will be found the man of sweetness of temper, of consecration 
to an unselfish ideal ; the man who cannot, because he will not, 
indulge himself in vain regrets, and who is shrewdly conscious that 
"the mill will never grind again with the water that is past." 

It is my mission now to inquire which one of these two groups of 
opinions is most worthy of our acceptance, the pessimistic and the 
destructive, or the optimistic and the constructive. By what standard 
shall our judgment be formed? By what standard do intelligent, 
generous, large-minded men form their judgment of any organiza- 
tion or of any movement ? How are the Southerji people, who place 
such large emphasis upon truth and courtesy, to interpret this great 
educational Conference? 

There are just three things concerning this or any other move- 
ment that will inevitably determine its ultimate destiny; and upon 
these three things a rational interpretation of this Conference must 
be based: (i) Its personnel, (2) its motive or its creed, and (3) 
its present influence and past achievement. 

I. The first question, therefore, which .we must answer is this: 
What is the character of the men and women who have shaped the 
influence and the history of this Conference? We estimate a man 
by his character and by his personality. What does he stand for? 



1 8 Conference for Education in the South 

Has he borne himself with fortitude and dignity in his relations with 
his fellowmen? Has he kept faith with his nobler self? Has he 
served faithfully his day and his generation? By this standard let 
us estimate those who compose these annual gatherings. Have they 
come from any class or any one profession? Have they come from 
any one section or any one locality? Do they represent any one 
religious creed or any one political party? Is it not true that we 
have here a national gathering of men and women, moved by the 
highest ethical and patriotic motives, to aid in the solution of a 
national problem? Have not most of these men and women for 
years, in one way or another, demonstrated in their lives that they 
are animated by the simple conviction that the education of all the 
people in all sections of the nation is the hope of our common 
country 

Here are the governors of States and patriotic private citizens, 
heads of great universities and humble schoolteachers. Here are 
clergymen of many communions, statesmen of all parties, physicians, 
lawyers, bankers, planters, merchants, editors and authors. Here 
are representatives of the head, the heart and the hand of the country 
united in a great cause and serving a great ideal. Almost every 
phase of our complex national life is represented in this composite 
aggregation of men who have put away for awhile their several 
cares to answer the larger call of their common country. There is 
almost nothing unrepresented except provincial narrowness, petty 
animosity, selfish motive and ignoble purpose. Is not the personnel 
of such a gathering as this a sufficient guarantee of its benevolent 
mission and its patriotic impulse? 

If any Southern man interprets this Conference as an evil force 
or as a dangerous experiment, let him reflect that its meetings are 
held on our own Southern soil. Let him reflect that its continued 
existence is due to the call of our own Southern people, through 
their own legislative bodies, through their own institutions of learn- 
ing, through their own leading citizens. Let him reflect that its 
personnel is dominantly made up of leading men of our own South- 
ern country, who are devoted to the traditions and the ideals of our 
fathers, who are not ashamed of the land that gave them birth, and 
who, in keeping faith with the past, are also loyal to their American 
citizenship and ready for the new duties of this new day, and for 
the manifest destiny that awaits them. 



George H. Denny 19 

2. Having considered the personnel of this Conference, let us ex- 
amine its motive or its creed, which is the second element in the 
analysis upon v^hich our interpretation of these gatherings must rest. 
We estimate a man by the motive that moves him. We estimate 
a church or party by its creed or platform. Let the same test, in 
fairness, be applied to this Conference ; and let our interpretation of 
it be largely determined by the character of the motive that inspires 
it. Where shall we look for its creed? Whom shall we permit to 
formulate it? Shall we accept the spurious versions of it which its 
critics inspire and disseminate? Or shall we examine the authentic 
records, its own published and oft-repeated declarations of policy^ 
and purpose? We should refuse to listen to a man who criticised 
the creed of a church, if he had never read its confession of faith. 
We should entertain little regard for a partisan editor who made an 
attack upon a political platform if he was unfamiliar with it in every 
detail. And yet in all the discussion concerning this Conference, 
there has never passed under my eye a single unfriendly criticism 
based upon an authentic statement of its creed. What is that creed? 
Is there anything abstruse, or hidden, or labored about it? Is it 
not a creed marked by a conspicuous clearness of expression, by a 
notable directness of method, and by an unmistakable definiteness of 
purpose ? 

The creed of this gathering is expressed in the simple dogma that 
"the education of all the people is the foremost task of our states- 
manship and the most worthy object of our philanthropy." Or, to 
adopt Mr. Emerson's phrase, we believe that "the best political 
economy is the care and culture of men." Or, better still, as Mr. 
Ogden expresses it, we pledge our faith that "the great social duty 
of our age is the saving of society, and further, that the salvation 
of society begins with the saving of the child." 

Such is the moral and patriotic inspiration of the Conference for 
Education in the South, and such is its simple and inspiring declara- 
tion of doctrine. Its voice has been for eight years ringing out with 
true and distinct emphasis, above the loud barking of a confused 
and clamorous opposition, its inspired message that every child in 
this broad land possesses the natural right to acquire the capacity 
for intelligent citizenship, the opportunity for a useful and abundant 
life, and the enjoyment of liberty under a democratic government. 
Who will say that this is not a just and holy cause? Who will 



20 Conference for Education in the South 

refuse to accept such a simple, altruistic creed as this? Who will 
be deaf to the clear, shrill call to such patriotic service? Who will 
decline to echo and reecho the silent, lonely, isolated appeal of the 
thousands of children who tonight dwell untaught in the highways 
and hedges of our Southern country? 

3. Let us make inquiry, in conclusion, as to the present influence 
and the past achievement of this Conference. We believe that it has 
been shown that there is nothing in its personnel or its creed to war- 
rant an interpretation unfavorable to it. Is there anything in its 
work or its influence, which is the third element in the analysis upon 
which our interpretation of it must rest, that a Southern man can 
'reasonably refuse to endorse? "By their fruits ye shall know them." 
It is inevitably true that men will continue to place a larger em- 
phasis upon this feature of an organization than upon its personnel 
or its creed. The work of this Conference will stand or fall in the 
judgment of men as they estimate the character of the fruit of the 
tree. What is the character of that fruit? Who has followed the 
history of these Conferences year by year and failed to observe their 
far-reaching and beneficent influences? Have these Conferences 
had no part in stimulating the wonderful growth of public opinion 
in favor of universal education during these eight years ? Have they 
had no part in welding together the two sections of our common 
country, so long living in partial estrangement and partial misunder- 
standing? Have they had no part in readjusting old view-points 
and in reconstructing new theories? Have they had no part in 
shedding old prejudices and in purging the memory of soul-destroy- 
ing rancor, groundless bitterness and long-spent quarrels Have they 
had no part in adding energy and enthusiasm, fulness and fervence, 
faith and hope, to the new duties and the new obligations of those 
who are called to fulfil their mission, not amid the dead issues of the 
past, but in the presence of the living problems of today and to- 
morrow ? Have they had no part in bringing our Southern institu- 
tions into sympathetic touch with great-hearted men who have the 
means and disposition to help, and who have helped where help was 
needed ? Have they had no part in bringing together many men and 
women who have long cherished common educational ideals, aspira- 
tions and hopes ? Have they had no part in teaching us that institu- 
tions and policies and individuals, born of the same devotion and 
cherishing: the same ideals, should be one and indivisible in their 



George H. Denny 21 

endeavor to hasten the coming of that day of universal wisdom and 
righteousness, foreseen by seers and divinely promised, toward which 
it should be the glory of our age to be marching with strenuous 
celerity ? 

From whatever point of view this Conference is considered, Mr. 
President, it is worthy of the sympathy and appreciation of thought- 
ful, patriotic men, and I can see no ground for difference between a 
Northern and a Southern interpretation of its mission and its des- 
tiny. For if it stands approved and justified by the logic of the 
three tests which we have endeavored to apply, tests by which we 
judge the value of all human agencies and human institutions, it 
must and it will stand approved and justified in any and every fair 
judgment based upon authentic fact, whether that judgment be 
formed in the North or in the South. I believe that the great spirits 
of every section have welcomed its advent, and that in the future 
years, come good or ill, all worthy citizens will look back to these 
gatherings as one of the largest assets, one of the richest traditions, 
and one of the noblest memories in our national life. I am persuaded 
that at this hour somewhere, somehow, the great spirits of the two 
men to whom I referred at the beginning of this address are looking 
down in benediction upon our efforts ; and, cherishing this convic- 
tion, I have faith in the final rectitude of the cause and a splendid 
ultimate victory. All honor to you, Mr. Ogden, for your distin- 
guished service to your country in so many particulars, and especially 
in this great work that in chaste and simple beauty will rest like a 
capital upon the solid and splendid shaft of your civic and philan- 
thropic renown. 

The Chairman made announcements for the further proceedings 
of the Conference and for the entertainment of their guests by the 
citizens, after which the Conference adjourned to meet the next 
morning at 10 o'clock, with the understanding that there would be 
an informal gathering at 8 45 in the Chapel of the South Carolina 
Collesfe. 



THE RECEPTION AT THE CAPITOL 

At the conclusion of the exercises in the Columbia Theater there 
was a reception at the State Capitol in honor of the visitors, the 
halls of the Senate and of the House of Representatives having been 
granted for this purpose by special Act of the Legislature. 

The halls had been decorated with magnolia trees, evergreens, and 
Southern moss by the following committee of ladies : Mesdames 
C. M. Galloway, J. E. Poore, W. A. Edwards, E. B. Wallace, T. J. 
Lipscomb, R. B. Bryan, George McCutchen, D. S. Pope, A. W. 
Hamby, A. G. LaMotte, J. T. Gantt, A. C. Phelps, Frank Sims, D. 
L. Bryan, W. A. Heath, Alex. Heyward, Misses Belle Williams, 
Anna Taylor, Nan Crayton, Marion Muller, M. V. Converse, Annie 
Spiegner, Syble Walker, Ella Kinard, Sarah E. Cowan, Alice Selby, 
Kate Manning, Edith Swaffield, Mazie Meighan, Elinor Van Ben- 
thuysen, Mary Walker, L. Hamiter, Grace Kinard, Annie A. Sin- 
gleton, Hannah Wingard. 

The reception was conducted by a committee of ladies of which 
Mrs. Andrew C. Moore was chairman, and was admirable in all its 
arrangements. The receiving committee consisted of Governor and 
Mrs. D. C. Heyward, Mr. and Mrs. T. H. Gibbes, Mr. and Mrs. W. 
A. Clark, Miss E. E. McClintock, Maj. B. Sloan, Mr. E. S. Dreher, 
Mr. and Mrs. John T. Sloan, Mr. and Mrs. O. B. Martin, Mr. and 
Mrs. W. W. Daniel. 

The members of the serving committee were : Misses Jean Flinn, 
Anna Colcock, Kate Manning, Martha Dwight, Gussie Jones, Mar- 
garet Coffin, Belle Davis, Sadie Reynolds, Eliza Rhett, Beulah 
Ehrlich, Ella Kinard, Elvira Wright, Susie Haskell, Kate Moore, 
May Williams, Alice Selby, Mary McPheeters, Sarah E. Cowan, 
C. E. Thomas, Rae Flinn, Lillie Clark, Nell Taylor, Alice Hender- 
son, Janie Childs, Bessie Davis, Jessie McKay, Blanche Salley, 
Florence Kinard, Grace Kinard, Emma Fielding, Angle Miller, 
Callie Cureton, Kate Lorraine Crawford, Belle Williams, Cantey 
Reed, Eleanor McQueen, M. L. Warner, Lizzeve Crayton, Ellen 
Reiff. 

It was a delightful occasion in every way, and the large number in 
attendance were prepared by this social hour for fuller enjoyment 
of the exercises to follow on the morrow. 



SECOND DAY. THURSDAY, APRIL 27 



EXERCISES AT THE SOUTH CAROLINA COLLEGE. 

After the regular devotional services in the Chapel at 8 130 a. m., 
conducted by the Chaplain, Dr. J. W. Flinn, the President of the 
Colleg-e, Maj. Benjamin T. Sloan, arose and spoke as follows: 

Ladies and Gentlemen and Young Men of South Carolina College: 
We have in Columbia today a detachment of men and women from 
that great body which is the heart and soul of this country, I mean 
the educators of the country. It is an inspiration to us all to have 
these men and women meet with us in Columbia, and it is our par- 
ticular pleasure today to have some of them pause in their proceeding 
and address to you a few words of encouragement and cheer. I 
shall have the real pleasure of introducing to you the President of 
the Conference for Education, Mr. Robert C. Ogden. 

Mr. Ogden. 

Mr. President and Gentlemen of the College, Ladies and Gentlemen: 
My position here is somewhat peculiar, for although I am sur- 
rounded by academic influence that is incarnate in the various 
gentlemen who have had something to do with the Conference for 
Education in the South, yet in every technical way I am remarkably 
ignorant of anything concerning the practical side of education. I 
do not know that I should find myself an absolute stranger in the 
classroom, but probably should not be quite at ease in a professor's 
lecture room. 

My experiences in life are of an entirely different type. I am 
simply a working business man, at my desk and around my place of 
business every day, looking after the details of an ordinary and what 
would be usually considered a very prosaic occupation. I shall not 
attempt anything in the very few minutes that I shall claim of your 
time, except to express the hope that in this group of students there 
are men who are getting a liberal education that they may better fit 
themselves for the ordinary occupation of business life. I simply 



24 Conference for Education in the South 

want to say, coming as I do from the outside world, that for ordinary- 
business affairs in business life there is a growing demand for higher 
intelligence. In the experiences of a large business that has to do 
with the distribution of merchandise directly to the people, that is, 
a retail business, I find that the public, certainly in my home com- 
munity, demands a greater degree of knowledge on the part of men 
with whom they deal. 

In the administration of merchandise in which art is an element, 
which practically is a part of everything that has to do with the 
furnishing of a house, a realm where taste or the knowledge of art or 
the history of art comes in, this demand appears. It would interest 
you extremely to notice how many points of life this principle 
touches. The public are advancing much more rapidly than the 
people who serve them. Therefore it is necessary, it is a demand of 
the times, it is the evolution in the daily experience of the world, 
that more intelligent, more highly educated, better men are wanted 
for even the most ordinary places ; and as this begins in what is 
simple, so it runs all the way through the gamut of life, that higher 
intelligence is required in all business affairs. 

Therefore the training that a man gets in a college or university, 
which enables him to take up the problems of life that carry with 
them the issues of commerce, of labor, of capital, of cooperation, 
and all that enters into our complex civilization, is essential to the 
largest usefulness and greatest success. Men with trained minds 
and theoretically instructed, who can go into the privacy of office or 
study and take the questions that are pressing for solution, and each 
for himself reach a conclusion and belief on the vital issue, are 
greatly needed. Every such man has a foundation of his own on 
which to stand and become a constructive force in the community. 
A man's education should be such that the business with which he 
may be connected can be improved by him and its whole atmosphere 
made better. Whatever education a young business man gets in an 
institution of learning should be largely infused with idealism for 
his business. There is nothing so well done that it cannot be better 
done. There is nothing so beautiful that it cannot be made more 
beautiful. There is no system of business so perfect that it cannot 
have improvements. Therefore I think that it ought to be one of the 
great results of a liberal education to carry into the occupations of 
business ideas of dignity and beauty that will make life more gra- 
cious and beautiful. 



Seth Low 25 

I cannot follow this thought further, because there are men before 
you whom you very much desire to hear, and the time is limited. 
Just one or two more words in illustration. If you are distributing 
merchandise to the world you are engaged in a social service, you 
are part of the progress of the times, and by doing that sort of thing 
better than it has ever been done before you are exercising a refining 
influence on the guild in which you serve, you are making a spiritual 
contribution to material things which ought to make your own life 
richer and your business more dignified. And so it is all through. 
Up and down the whole range of our affairs I think it wise to apply 
this simple principle, a principle that has been lost sight of but is to 
be inculcated in the minds of our young men during the course of 
higher education for business life. 

President Sloan. 

It is now my high privilege to intoduce to you one concerning 
whose work and history I shall not reflect upon your intelligence by 
even attempting to describe. I have the honor to introduce to you 
Mr. Seth Low, of New York. 

Mr. Low. 

Mr. President, Gentlemen of the Faculty, Students and Friends of 

South Carolina College: 

Mrs. Low and I had not reached the end of the campus before 
your President had made us feel at home ; and, standing in this 
presence, there are two explanations perhaps of that peculiar feeling 
of home-likeness which I felt ever since I have been here. I find 
in the name of your .city, that your city and Columbia University, 
with which I was connected at one time as President, share the 
prestige of the same great name, a circumstance that perhaps ex- 
plains, in part, why I do not feel myself a stranger in these halls. 
It may be of interest to you to know that the name, Columbia, was 
first used in a legislative Act in 1784, two years before this city 
was founded, in the State of New York, when the name of King's 
College was changed to Columbia College, by law. That change, I 
think, was made under the inspiration of Alexander Hamilton, the 
greatest alumnus of that institution, I suppose, in all its history. 
Speaking one day, when President, to the incoming class, I ven- 



26 Conference for Education in the South 

tured to say that it ought to be a source of great inspiration to them 
that they were entering into a fellowship of such men as Alexander 
Hamilton and John Jay. I regret to say that that remark appeared 
in the students' newspaper in some such form as this : that the Presi- 
dent had told the freshman that he saw before him "a few Hamiltons 
and many Jays !" 

The other tie that binds us together is the connection of this insti- 
tution and of Columbia University with the name of Francis Lieber. 
He taught here, I think, for twenty years ; and, when he left, he went 
to Columbia University in New York, and taught there for a period 
almost as long. It may interest you to know that when I attended 
the Conference of Peace held at the Hague in 1899, ^s a representa- 
tive of the United States, the nations there assembled adopted rules 
of war by which all civilized nations should be governed ; and these 
rules were founded absolutely upon rules originally prepared by 
Francis Lieber. They were expanded somewhat in detail, as ex- 
perience had shown necessity, but the body of rules are those that he 
prepared ; so that you and we of Columbia University in the city of 
New York share, as I say, in the fame of a man who has rendered 
great service to mankind. 

I do not know what anecdotes of him remain on this campus, but 
the air of Columbia University is full, of stories that relate to his 
personality. He seems to have had the amiable foible of vanity that 
is not infrequently found in men of great ability. On one occasion 
he was led into a rather ludicrous situation. About his classroom 
were various busts of men of antiquity, and, among others, one of 
Cicero. If you have seen a bust of Cicero, you will know that he was 
not a very beautiful man : at any rate, not on a "bust." On one 
occasion some students were helping Professor Lieber to rearrange 
these busts. When they came to the bust of Cicero, the Professor 
said : "Do you know, some of the students call that the 'What is it ?' " 
Then, forgetting what he had said, he added : "Cicero was a very 
learned man, a very learned man indeed. Do you know, some say I 
look like Cicero?" So I might entertain you with more than one 
anecdote of him ; but all that I have wanted to do is to illustrate this 
bond of connection and friendship between you and me. 

Mr. Ogden spoke of the importance of college education, from the 
point of view of developing in the student, idealism ; and nothing 
truer could be suggested. I think, also, that every college man ought 



Seth Low 27 

to bring to the problems of the community a sense of perspective ; he 
ought to know more of history than men not so trained, and be able 
to pass judgment on the events of the hour in the light of events 
that have taken place in other countries, and at other times. These 
are perhaps the two great contributions which college-bred men 
ought to be able to make to the life of the body politic. 

Now, at Columbia we enjoyed the privilege of a visit, about ten 
or twelve years ago, from von Helmholz, the great German physicist ; 
and, in speaking to our students on the subject of science, he said: 
"When men went to nature for their facts, in order to find out what 
the facts were, and then endeavored to discover the law that would 
account for the facts, instead of simply looking for facts that would 
sustain their own theories, previously formed, modern science was 
born." In other words, if you form your theory in advance, and then 
look for facts to sustain it, you may find facts that will do it; but a 
man who approaches his studies wholly in that mode is very apt to 
discover also facts that do not fit in with his theory, and these he is 
apt to disregard. 

But modern science, which has revolutionized life and all studies, 
proceeds upon the very opposite method. It searches for facts, and 
then strives to deduce the law that will explain all the facts, not 
some of them only, but all of them ; and I remember well the plea 
von Helmholz made to our students to spare no effort to discover 
some new law of nature, because, he said, "the man who discovers 
a law of nature makes all mankind his debtor." I cannot help think- 
ing, as I am speaking of this great man, of an incident that took 
place while he was with us. Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor 
of the telephone, came all the way from Halifax to greet von Helm- 
holz, and to tell him that it was his investigations into the law of 
sound — abstract, apparently indefinite, apparently without any prac- 
tical bearing — that it was these Investigations into the laws of sound, 
made by von Helmholz, which had enabled him (Bell) to invent 
the telephone. You see how splendidly that illustrates the great 
German's proposition — "To discover some new law of nature makes 
all mankind your debtor." I was very much pleased Avith a little in- 
cident that occurred at that time. Bell asked von Helmholz to go 
down with him to the long-distance telephone office which had just 
then opened its first wire to Chicago. I was fortunate enough to be 
invited also. It was a matter of the greatest possible interest to 



28 Conference for Education in the South 

this great German to know that, by virtue of his own investigations, 
it would be possible for him to speak over a distance so great as 
New York to Chicago ; and so he telegraphed to a friend in Chicago 
to be in his ofifice at 4 o'clock, for, at that hour, he would call him 
up over the long-distance 'phone. When we got to the office we 
had to wait an hour, because the great physicist had forgotten that 
there was an hour's difference of time between New York and 
Chicago. So, in your search for new laws of nature, do not forget 
the application of those that are already known ! 

That habit of trying to get your facts first, and of making your 
deductions afterwards, has not only remade the study of science, but 
it has rewritten the history of the world, and transformed almost 
every other branch of human learning. I remember when I was in 
Rome in 1867, for the first time, the Forum was very little excavated. 
There was a stone pillar protruding from the soil, of which Byron 
had written that it was "a nameless pillar with a buried base." But 
the science of those earlier years had been content to rest upon the 
fact that we did not know what it was ; and so men indulged in num- 
berless speculations on the subject. It was really delightful to spec- 
ulate about this pillar, for, as long as they did not get to work to dig 
it out, every man could have his own theory; but the moment they 
began to apply the spade, they discovered what the pillar really was. 
It was not a very interesting one, as it transpired ; but the point I 
want to make to you is, that the application of the same idea of 
which von Helmholz spoke, in referring to physical science, disposed 
of all theories about this pillar, and made it a matter of actual knowl- 
edge. And yet, there is a certain sense in which one must form 
theories in order to get at facts. At the time of this same visit that 
I made to the Forum in 1867 there was visible above the soil another 
group of three pillars, said to be part of the Temple of Castor and 
Pollux, as they proved afterwards to be. When I was there last 
year I found that excavations in the Forum had been made to the 
depth of ten or fifteen feet ; and close by the Temple of Castor and 
Pollux, the foundations of which had been uncovered, was found a 
Fountain of Vesta, lined with marble. That fountain was discovered 
in this Fashion : I assume that most of you have read Macaulay's 
"Lays of Ancient Rome" ; and, if you have, you will recall the 
"Battle of Lake Regillus," in which he speaks of the great Twin 



St. Clair McKelway 29 

Brethren riding to Rome after the battle, and giving the news of a 
great victory. Then the poet adds : 

"Wherefore they washed their horses 

In Vesta's holy well, 
Wherefore they rode to Vesta's door, 
I know, but may not tell." 

That was the expression of an old legend; and when men began to 
dig in the Forum, they said to themselves : "This Fountain of Vesta 
ought to be near the Temple of Castor and Pollux." Knowing where 
that was, by this group of three pillars, they began to dig in the 
neighborhood of this place; and they had hardly gotten beneath the 
surface before they came upon the fountain. There was the reverse 
process of that which I have been speaking. They had to know this 
legend, in order to justify their theory ; and to go below the earth to 
discover what the earth could tell. Similarly, you must bring into 
all of your lifework that element of imagination, based upon things 
that you do know, if you want to increase your knowledge by gaining 
new facts ; but, it is one thing to use imagination in that fashion, as 
an aid to the discovery of new facts, being always ready to modify 
your theories in the light of what you discover, and quite another 
to have your theories, and so only to look for the things which you 
think sustain them beyond all doubt. If your investigations upon any 
matter disturb a preconceived notion, and compel you to take up new 
theories, you should have a readiness to readjust them completely, if 
further inquiry leads you to feel that you have perhaps been wrong. 

That, gentlemen, is the thought that I would like to give you — the 
importance of having facts at your command, and of having the 
readiness to modify your theories in the light of new facts as you 
learn them. 

President Sloan : I have the honor of introducing to you one 
whose daily business it is, not only to inform but to educate, to mould 
public opinion as well as individual character — the editor of the great 
daily newspaper. The Brooklyn Eagle. I have the honor to introduce 
to you Dr. St. Clair McKelway. 

Dr. McKelway. 
Mr. President, My Friends: 

A newspaper man ought to know a little about printing ; he ought 
to know a little about punctuation. I am merely a vibrating hyphen 

3— c. E. 



30 Conference for Education in the South 

between Mr. Low and President Alderman. The latter has been 
taking notes of what those who preceded him said. He is taking 
notes now of what I am saying. His speech will be a compound of 
pepper, salt and hash. He will furnish the pepper and salt ; Mr. 
Ogden, Dr. Low and Dr. Alderman will furnish the material for 
the more solid ingredients. All combined will pass into history as 
President Alderman's speech. 

There has been talk here about Columbia. You can all take honor 
and pride in the name. Mr. Low can well take honor and pride in 
the name, and so can I, because I was born in Columbia — Missouri. 
Furthermore, I here represent, less the journalism to which the 
presiding officer has so kindly referred, than the Board of Regents of 
the State of New York, of which I have the honor to be the Vice 
Chancellor. Columbia University was the foundation Alexander 
Hamilton had in mind when he got another senator from the Long 
Island district to introduce the act in the State Legislature estab- 
lishing the present system of education under State auspices in the 
commonwealth of New York. I know that the idea of the State 
university gives you something akin tO' a shock in this institution 
unless your institution be made the core and center and potential 
promise of it, as it should be. I think that the present controllers 
of opinion in journalism, in education, and in the political action of 
South Carolina can be trusted so to create their own State university 
as to get at the existing facts and to stimulate existing institutions 
and to make them the foundation for the subsequent comprehensive, 
catholic and culturing edifice built thereupon. In other words, it 
cannot be made on paper. The world was made out of nothing ; but 
the Lord was the creator in that case. Human institutions are made 
by fallible human beings and out of existing material. It is a great 
pleasure to be in this honored institution ; it is a great satisfaction to 
know that your centennial was lately passed amidst such circum- 
stances of hopefulness and confidence. It is a grand lesson even to 
your youngest men to tell over the list of the names of the great men 
in the past who were here graduated. They should be your inspira- 
tion ; they should not be your fetishes. You can lean historically on 
them for vindication, but you must look within the present and to- 
wards the future for your work. 

The best thing about these colleges is that they give ideals ; that 
they present the man who knows as at least the equal of the man 



St. Claxir McKelway 31 

who has ; that they place the man who investigates at least on a par 
with the man who accumulates ; that they place the teacher in the 
forefront; there is where he belongs. It is as a Teacher that the 
Creator of us all sent to us His beloved Son ; it was as a Teacher of 
righteousness that He sent His apostles throughout all the world. It 
is as a teaching force that the ministry expanded into a body ; "Go 
into all the world and preach ye unto all people," and drawing its 
inspiration from John, education has been touched by the same fire. 
You are all teachers, not in schools unless there your lot should be 
cast, not in colleges unless you should go to them in the gravitation 
of Providence, but in business, in any profession, in any art, you are, 
will be, and should be teachers. Be teachers in the right way. Do 
not answer George Eliot's definition of a prig in "Middlemarch" as 
a gentleman who is always presenting his unsolicited opinion to 
others ; but do your work, think your thoughts, set out your proposi- 
tions so clearly and so distinctly that the result will be educational 
to you and to those under your influence, and, above all, avoid im- 
posture. The best definition of imposture I know of was given by 
a professor in a New York college of philosophy ; he had a weak side 
towards entomology. Some of the boys constructed an artificial 
insect of flies and grasshoppers and bats and glue, and they placed it 
under the microscope of the old gentleman ; in one of his most 
intense moments he examined it with care. He looked up with dan- 
gerous seriousness and he said: "My young friends, this is cer- 
tainly the finest sample of that rare form of a special genus that I 
have ever known, the genus humbug." "I advise you to beware 
of it." 

Dr. Low was talking about the wonders of telephonic transmis- 
sion. When the line for commercial intercourse between New 
York (which is now only Manhattan) and Chicago opened in the 
middle of October, 1892, I was honored by the request to transmit 
the first message following that between the mayor of New York 
and the mayor of Chicago. On the wall was a great map of every 
State between Chicago and New York, and in black or red lines 
across that map was marked the route of the telephone over which 
we were talking — Indiana, Illinois, Pennsylvania and Ohio, were, 
of course, very significant; and when I began to speak with the 
gentleman in Chicago, I said, "Is this map (describing it) also on 
the wall in your place in Chicago?" He said, "Yes." I said, "You 



32 Conference for Education in the South 

notice the line goes through Indiana and IlHnois?" He answered, 
"Yes.". I said, "You have no doubt about those States?" He re- 
plied, "No." I said, "Then they are not doubtful States?" Three 
weeks after that Grover Cleveland carried them. Prophecy is some- 
times the ante-pulsation of history. 

I am very glad to be with these young men ; to get in touch with 
this institution ; I am glad to come in touch with South Carolina, 
which has always flamed with ideas to the finger tips. With all of 
those ideas I have not agreed. With the most of mine, if South 
Carolina knew anything about them, South Carolina would not 
have always agreed. But be sure that along the line of thought, on 
the line of ideality, on the line of independent thinking, South Caro- 
lina, and every other State worth speaking about, proceeds ; and that 
those who follow these impulses, eventually, whether here or here- 
after, are bound to come out on the right road. 

President Sloan : The University of Virginia is a home whose 
foundations are set deeply in the hearts of all South Carolinians. 
We all turn to it with reverence. It gives me, therefore, unfeigned 
pleasure to introduce to you this morning its brilliant president, 
President Edwin Anderson Alderman. 

President Alderman. 

Mr. President and Students of the University, Ladies and Gentlemen: 
It is a singular thing to me, a pathetic thing, in a way, this desire 
of all men for posthumous fame. I have, in common with all my 
fellows, shared that desire, but I never, in my wildest moments, 
dreamed of the radiant reputation that awaited me as the deliverer 
of a speech in the South Carolina College in the year 1905, the in- 
gredients of which, as the receipt book would say, were Ogden's 
pepper. Low's salt, and McKelway's hash. And yet what nobler 
"nunc dimittis" — well done thou good and faithful servant — could 
come to any man than this, for what Niagara is to waterfalls and the 
pyramids to monuments and Sahara to deserts, is McKelway to 
such hash-making. So, if I should appear unduly cocky and cocksure 
and conceited and otherwise swaggering around during the Con- 
ference for Education, you may know some of the emotions that 
are in my soul. 



Edivin A. Alderman 33 

When your President was good enough to ask me to come today, 
I told him at first I could not come because the doctor had told me 
I had a throat. I was reminded of a story told me by a dear friend 
of mine. You can tell it on South Carolina when you are in North 
Carolina, and on North Carolina when you are in South Carolina. 
It is one of these reversible jokes. It is the story of two soldiers in a 
hospital during the Civil War, on a hot summer day, with the flies 
busy all around them. After awhile one of the soldiers said to the 
other- — I believe this was the South Carolinian talking to the North 
Carolinian ; if I get it mixed you will understand I think I am in 
South Carolina. He said, "Stranger, how long have you been in 
this here war?" The stranger waited awhile and said, "Thirteen 
months." Then there was a long pause and the flies buzzed and he 
said, "Stranger, how long have you been in this here hospital?" 
The North Carolinian said, "Twelve months." Then another long 
pause and the South Carolinian said, "Stranger, if you don't mind 
my axing, where in the devil were you that other month?" The 
North Carolinian brushed the flies away and then answered, "Alook- 
ing for the hospital." 

So it appears that looking for the hospital was really my need this 
morning, but my mind went back nine years ago when I came here 
to this College of South Carolina to bring to it the greeting of the 
University of North Carolina, to make my first acquaintance with this 
institution and with its life and worth, and today I felt it was both 
a privilege and a pleasure for me to bring to it the greeting of the 
University of Virginia, which is bound to it, as has been well said, 
by a host of noble memories and by a host of noble endeavors, and by 
a common sympathy and pride in the possession of such names as 
Cooper and Venable and Joyner and Bain and others. 

Not long ago I read a very clever article in the Atlantic Monthly 
entitled "The Difficulties and Dangers of a College President," and 
he has a good many. He bears a five-fold relation to the faculty and 
to the students and to society and to legislation and other things 
that make his task one of supreme difficulty. I feel sometimes, 
however, that I ought to write, or get somebody else to write, an 
article on the pleasures of the college president, for he has distin- 
guished pleasures, and this is one of them, the certainty that wherever 
he goes, he is going to meet the very best folks that can be found, 
and that during his daily life, he is going to be associated with 



34 Conference for Education in the South 

picturesque and vital and beautiful youth. I claim to be a sort of con- 
noisseur of college boys. I know them, I have associated with him 
in Piedmont Carolina and by the banks of the Mississippi and by 
the old red hills of Albemarle, and I have learned to have interest 
and pleasure in everything about them, from the color of their 
blazers, their enthusiasms for their clubs or fraternities, the hideous- 
ness of their yells, and, even upon occasion, their naive notions of 
human conduct, and I am glad to see you young gentlemen here 
face to face and to have just this word with you. I do not wish to be 
provincial to those of you who are our guests, but there is indeed a 
peculiar quality of leadership or character, distinguished and peculiar, 
that the South has to make as a contribution to the strength and 
beauty of American life. Not that her boys are better or different 
or more forward or higher than any other good American boy from 
California to Maine, but somehow he has had a different fate. He 
has had a remarkable training ; he has had acquaintance with hard- 
ships ; he has had that splendid tutelage that I would call the phil- 
osophy of defeat which shows itself in the Frenchman of today, in 
the Mexican of today, and the German of the last century; that 
settled sobriety and dignity and appreciation of the sterner things 
that give men fortitude and cause their children to have fortitude, 
and it seems to me as I go about the country I do not find quite such 
simple modesty anywhere. I do not see so many scorching around in 
automobiles or sailing around in balloons. They have the idea still 
that life means opportunity and service, useful service to the State, 
and somehow when I talk to you and fellows like you in other col- 
leges, I feel as if the whole nation is interested in you as a potential 
asset of its high life in that inevitable struggle which is coming to it 
as sure as God lives ; that age of moral warfare that shall succeed to 
this age of passionate gain-getting. 

Now, my friends, I want to give you just this point — Mr. Ogden, 
and Dr. Low, and Mr. McKelway have all touched upon it : You 
want steadfastness ; you want willfulness in the better sense of 
that word ; you want impulsiveness such as belonged to your fathers. 
As Mr. McKelway stated, the power that dares adhere to an idea, 
to cling to it, and to stand by it and die alongside of it ; but you 
want something more ; you want knowledge and sympathy ; you 
want to know about things before you settle them, instead of settling 
them first and learning them afterwards ; you want to think with 



Edwin A. Alderman 35 

your brains and not with your emotions. And, above all, you want 
to form habits of looking forward and not backward. Edmund 
Burke said that those who do not look backward to their ancestors 
would not be likely to look forward to their posterity. And I know 
he was right, but I prefer to talk about the forward view of life ; of 
the strong, tumultuous, beautiful life of the future. We exist to 
serve, we exist to dream of it and think about it and work for it. 

Now, my young friends, I believe that one of the ablest and clearest 
duties we have got to settle today is a rational conception of what 
patriotism means. Everybody knows Dr. Johnson's brutal sneer 
about it, and there are all sorts of confused ideas about it. There is 
the alcoholic conception of patriotism ; the fellow who goes out under 
the sky with a certain sort of mauldin sentiment and declares, 
"Hurrah for my country ; right or wrong, my country !" It sounds 
well, but there is no sense and no ethics in it. If a nation is wrong, 
it is wrong whether it is your country or not. It is wrong, and the 
honorable thing to do is to look it in the face and to try in an humble 
way, but correct way, as God has given us power, to straighten the 
thing out and make it right. 

And then there is what you might call the decorative patriotism. 
I do not mean to belittle it. The patriotism that sees the past as a 
golden age, everything good then, everything mediocre and common- 
place now, that loves local associations and has a sort of passion 
for that sort of thing, but this is not the highest patriotism. 

And then there is the geological patriotism that fixes its love upon 
a certain region, a certain valley or hillside, upon certain lands that 
charm the eyes of childhood and youth and seem to be the whole 
world. 

And then there is. what I might call common-sense patriotism, 
that looks out upon life and asks this question : "What can be 
done to help it along ; to make it better ; to give social sympathy and 
opportunity ; to give accurate knowledge a chance ; that looks, there- 
fore, first for knowledge, and developes, secondly, sympathy with 
everybody. The poor man and the rich man can both be patriots in 
this sense. This sort of patriotism begins at home, in the backyard, 
in the public street, and in the little village common, and in the village 
school, and common school, and gradually goes on up to a conception 
of this great republic, now so strong that no internal trouble or 
foreign war can ever rend or crack or disturb its married calm and 
unity. 



36 Conference for Education in the South 

Now, my friends, just one word, and I am through. I do not 
believe a nobler blessing can come into the life of a young man who 
is going to be a serious young man, and a serious old man, and who 
is going to take a good part in life, than to try to annex himself right 
at the start of life to some great cause ; some big idea that touches 
men and not himself alone. 

That is why I so often thank God, if you will allow the personal 
allusion, that it was my fortune upon the very lintels of life to get 
annexed to a great idea. This blessing did not come by favor or 
merit. It was a colossal good fortune which came to me out of the 
dear heavens. I thank God for getting annexed to this great idea of 
service for the people — all the people, the high, the low, the bond, 
the free, the rich, the poor, the black, the white. It has helped to 
put a little splendor into many a gloomy and haggard day in my life, 
and to give a sort of dignity to hard work when all the heavens 
seemed black. Therefore, I say to you, try to annex yourself to a 
cause — put yourself close to some big idea that helps men along; 
that enriches society, and though you may fail or fall, be sure of one 
thing : the great cause in which God stands will go marching grandly 
on and your soul will go marching along with it. 

President Sloan : President Alderman's speech brings to a close 
the feast which we have all so heartily enjoyed this morning. Look- 
ing into your faces, I feel that I am commissioned to thank these gen- 
tlemen, each, for the part which he has contributed to that feast, 
which I now do. 

President Sloan then turned to the distinguished visitors on the 
platform and bowed gravely and graciously. A hearty burst of ap- 
plause was the response, and the visitors retired to the regular meet- 
ing of the Conference. 



Reception at the South Carolina College 37 

RECEPTION AT THE SOUTH CAROLINA COLLEGE 
THURSDAY AFTERNOON. 

On Thursday afternoon the "educational visitors" in Columbia 
were tendered a reception at the South Carolina College. At about 
5 130 o'clock the guests began to gather and from then to nightfall 
spread over the grassy campus, renewing old acquaintances, forming 
new ones, and engaging in delightful conversation. 

The President of the College and the members of the faculty 
with their wives received the guests at the monument near the center 
of the campus, while the young ladies of the College served refresh- 
ments from one of the classrooms. Music was furnished by the 
College orchestra, a piano having been placed on the lawn near the 
monument, and this added much to the pleasure of the occasion. 



THURSDAY MORNING, APRIL 27 



In the Columbia Theater. 

The Conference was called to order at lo o'clock. 

The Chairman : It is understood that the official heads of the 
educational system in the several Southern States will assume con- 
trol this morning. With one or two exceptions they are all here. 
They are the power behind the throne, the unseen dynamic force that 
originates and carries forward the practical work with which this 
Conference has to do. It is, therefore, fitting that these gentlemen 
should have a share exclusively their own in the proceedings. So 
this morning's session, with the exception of the last address on 
"Agriculture in the Schools," will be in charge of the Superin- 
tendents of Education in the Southern States. The Superintendents 
have selected our friend, Mr. S. A. Mynders, Superintendent of In- 
struction for the State of Tennessee, to preside. It is, therefore, my 
pleasure and privilege to present Mr. Mynders. 

Superintendent Mynders. 

Mr. President: 

On behalf of the Association of State School Superintendents pf 
the Southern States, we thank you for this courtesy extended to us 
here. We realize that this Conference has met for special purposes 
and we desire to express our hearty sympathy with its work. That 
has been already done by resolution of our Board, as well as in our 
public statements. We are thankful to have this opportunity to 
participate in the exercises and are glad that the President has seen 
fit to assign us this time. 

The purpose of this meeting is not to have any very lengthy pre- 
pared papers, but rather brief reports of special features of educa- 
lional work in the South, distinct features of the labors of the past 
few years. These little talks by State Superintendents are intended 
to cover the field with reference to work now in progress in the 
Southern States. It happens that we have made progress along 



W. B. Merritt 39 

different lines and our secretary in assigning the subjects has had 
in view the particular work of the past two years. 

I now have the pleasure of introducing the Hon. W. B. Merritt, 
State School Commissioner of Georgia. 

MODEL RURAL SCHOOLS. 

W. B. Merritt^ 

State School Commissioner of Georgia. 

In no reference book, by no agreement of educational conventions 
— State, interstate, or national — has there been given out an exact 
definition of what constitutes a model school. We find not only that 
the conditions in the several States vary, but that the ideal school is a 
varied conception in different minds. One advantage which the 
school officials derive from meetings like this is that through dis- 
cussion we modify our ideals for the better. 

We have in many graded schools and in some rural schools work 
which might be considered "model." The term has for several years 
been applied to about half a dozen schools established in the rural 
districts in which manual training and other progressive and 
thorough work is taught by skilled teachers. These schools have 
been encouraged by educational officials and our normal schools ; 
and have had support, supplemental to the State fund, by the local 
communities and the woman's clubs. They have been greatly ap- 
preciated by the communities in which they are located, and their 
good influence has been very helpful in school work throughout the 
State. The reports of the work of these schools, as the report of the 
work of this Conference and other educational meetings, has planted 
good ideas in the minds of the teachers and the school patrons over 
a wide area. Communities have begun to plan better things for the 
education of their children. Manual training, consolidation, and 
rural high schools are some of the good results. 

We have a number of splendid examples of consolidation of schools 
similar to the illustration given in The State of yesterday, of a type 
of consolidated schools which are being established in this State. 
Good educational ideas brought to the attention of our people, 
through these conventions, through the press, etc., are the sowing of 
good seed in good ground. There is no truer and deeper truth of 
psychology than St. Paul's advice : that to become true, honest and 



40 Conference for Education in the Soiith 

noble, we have to think on these things. While some of our people 
are merely dreaming, other communities and counties are seriously 
thinking of the better things for their children. Local taxation for 
the support of the schools is coming all over the South. In Georgia, 
we are hoping that it will come by counties rather than by districts. 
The General Education Board, by contributing a part of the expenses 
of a supplemental term in three counties, has proven to our people 
that a long-term school will be appreciated and patronized in the 
rural districts. 

There is one school in Georgia which deserves especial mention. 
The Boys' Industrial School, near Rome, Ga., is a home for the 
training of boys who have little means. They are almost entirely 
from the rural districts. Their thorough training of hand, intellect 
and heart makes it not only model but ideal. The founder has felt 
called to this work and others have generously helped her sustain it. 

Another good influence of work in model schools, and other pro- 
gressive schools, is that it impresses all our people that a life of 
service to the rising generation is the noblest service we can give to 
our country. I was greatly impressed last evening when Mr. Ogden 
declared that Dr. J. L. M. Curry had recruited him to the work of 
education. I was pleased yesterday to read in the Associated Press 
dispatches that the Governor of Georgia, in a memorial speech, had 
stated that the time has come to erect a joint monument to the Con- 
federate and Federal dead. I believe that the time has come for 
the school children. South and North, to build some monument to 
the memory of their devoted friend, that most truly Southern and 
most truly national educational statesman. Dr. J. L. M. Curry. I 
believe that the children of both sections will, in the future, together 
cherish fondly the names of Dr. Curry and Mr. Robert Ogden. 

SUMMER SCHOOLS AND DISTRICT LOCAL TAXATION. 

O. B. Martin, 

State Superintendent of Ediication of South Carolina. 

A man who had been accustomed to be late at church arrived first 
on one occasion. He soliloquized : "First at last, I have always been 
behind before!" While I have been placed first on this program, 
I think delicacy suggests that I do no more than open this discussion. 



0. B. Martm 41 

I may do well to imitate the colored preacher, who said, "Brethren, 
I'll make my discourse short but brief." 

Eleven years ago a distinguished educator, addressing the National 
Educational Association, used the following language : "This year 
about 400,000 teachers will be needed in the schools of the republic. 
All the vacancies will be filled, but not all by teachers. Imagine, if 
you can or will, a grand review in which this vast array of teachers 
and would-be teachers should march by the assembled educational 
magnates and philosophers of this land. There pass the worthy and 
the unworthy ; those who are clad in the wedding garment of fitness ; 
others, alas ! fit only to be cast into outer darkness. The halt, the 
maimed and the blind are here, and, contrary to all the teachings of 
science, a survival of the uniittest is plainly visible to everyone who 
hath eyes to see ; and alas ! also, contrary to all human experience, 
the dead appear to be marching with the living." 

Summer Schools, Reading Circles and Teachers' Associations are 
improvised training agencies and drill fields in which the recruits are 
prepared for active service, where the experienced veterans are 
refreshed in the science of their profession and where they gather 
fresh inspiration for new battles. It is a fond but fatal delusion to 
hope that our present normal school and college facilities can provide 
well-trained and well-educated teachers for all our public schools. 
Were these means adequate for the moment, they could not keep up 
with the constant gaps in the ranks of the teachers' army. About 
twenty teachers out of every one hundred go to the farm, the law, 
the merchandise or the Elysian fields of matrimony every year. This 
means that in South Carolina more than a thousand places, where 
angels might fear to tread, must be filled by people whose success 
or failure will be achieved by groping experimentation. Many of 
these are sadly deficient even in scholarship. Our semi-annual 
teachers' examinations frequently reveal instances which would be 
humorous if they were not so pathetic. One person willing to enter 
the sacred portals of one of these people's universities, and there 
train the minds, form the characters and determine the destinies of 
America's citizenship, informed the examining board that the Mon- 
roe Doctrine was a new religion. The question, "Tell what you 
know about the alimentary canal," was answered as follows : "The 
French Government began it and failed, but Roosevelt is behind it 
now, and he will put it through." Another on being asked "How 



42 Conference for Education in the South 

did the United States secure Louisiana?" said, ''By trading trinkets 
with the Indians." Another said that "Stonewall Jackson won it by- 
fighting behind cotton bales, and whipping the English." This is a 
kind of a Jeffersonian diplomacy and a specimen of Jacksonian 
strategy which have thus far escaped the critical eyes of the his- 
torians. A teacher of another race gave an answer more practical, 
even if it were not as technical as might have been desired by the 
dignified Board of Education. The question was, "How would you 
promote the health of your pupils ?" The answer : "Make them wash 
often and set fur apart." It is needless to say that this applicant 
received all possible consideration and leniency. Experiences on a 
County Board of Education will forcibly suggest that any means 
which will bring more knowledge, greater skill, broader horizon, 
more frequent intellectual association and mental fellowship to the 
isolated teacher will enrich the life of the people and the citizenship 
of the State. Many of these have the elements necessary for growth 
and they only need sympathetic advice and wise guidance in order to 
become worthy captains of the grand army of teachers. 

The healthy, growing teacher, already in the work, thirsts and 
hungers for wisdom, knowledge, and communion. With our large 
rural population there is necessarily much isolation, and the teacher 
has no one with whom she can advise in the solution of the perplexing 
pedagogic problems which must confront her day by day. In reading 
the proof of the courses of study in the catalogue and announcements 
of our State Summer School, only a few days ago, I was impressed 
with the richness of the bill of fare, and I thought how it must appeal 
to the teacher who is hungering for better things and aspirmg to a 
wider outlook. With an annual attendance of about 2,500 teachers 
at the Summer Schools of this State, there is strong evidence that a 
large number of our teachers are growing and learning. This must 
affect the schools and the State. 

The taxation phases of our discussions consist of contrasts of the 
advantages of district, township, county and State levies. It is 
agreed that in the South we have until recently neglected the various 
forms of local taxation. Various forms of State taxation provide 
80 to 85 per cent, of our school revenues. About a quarter of a 
million dollars is annually raised from voluntary local taxes levied on 
about 400 out of 1,636 districts. Three-fourths of our districts may 
yet receive the benefits which come from local initiative and coopera- 



O. B. Martin 43 

tion. It seems that there is an advantage in allowing the smallest 
political and civil unit to assert itself in this important matter. It is 
a healthful sign that whenever this Conference has met, great impetus 
has been given to the local tax movement. 

As our school system develops we must establish more high 
schools. I believe that ere long we will establish a system of town- 
ship high schools, based on the principle of self-help and State aid. 
When all our districts have the local tax for the district schools, 
when we have township and county special tax for township and 
county high schools, and when our system of State taxation is con- 
tinued with special aid to encourage local improvement, then we will 
have a system built on the order of the Yankee's fence — three feet 
high and four feet wide, so that if it should blow over it would be 
higher than it was before. 

The present situation demands local effort, and therefore local 
agitation is necessary. We must do with our might what our hands 
find to do. Our opportunities and privileges are tremendous. Local 
tax elections are in order. The people in each community must 
work out their destiny. It cannot be decided in educational associa- 
tions or in State Legislatures. These may help, but local effort must 
be made. A preacher once preached a series of sermons on the 
doctrine of election. Some negroes, including the pastor of their 
church, were in the gallery. They became very much disturbed over 
the thought that they might have been elected to be lost. There was 
an urgent and unanimous demand that their parson preach a sermon 
and elucidate the situation. He took his text : "And these shall go 
away into everlasting punishment ; but the righteous into eternal 
life." After the customary preliminaries and commentaries, he 
launched into the depths of his theological discourse. He said : 
"Brudren, way back in de eternity, before de beginnin of time, dere 
was a lection to decide whether you must be saved or damned. The 
Almighty God, he vote fur you, and the devil he vote agin you, and 
de way you vote make the majority and decide de lection." In every 
community the principles of law, education and progress are striving 
with the forces of crime, illiteracy and retrogression, and the way that 
the community votes decides its present status and the destiny of its 
share of the citizenship of the State and Nation. 



44 Conference for Education in the South 

RURAL SCHOOL LIBRARIES. 

J. Y. JOYNER, 

State Superintendent of Public Instruction of North Carolina. 

In 1901 an appropriation of $5,000 for the two years following was 
provided for the establishment of libraries in rural public schools. 
This appropriation was continued in 1903 for the two following years 
and an additional appropriation of $2,500 was made for the estab- 
lishment of supplementary libraries in connection with the libraries 
previously established. In 1905 the appropriation of $5,000 for 
rural libraries and $2,500 for supplementary libraries was made 
biennial, so that no new act will hereafter be necessary for its con- 
tinuance. Minor amendments have been made to the rural library 
act at different times, but the main provisions of the act have not 
been materially changed. The provisions are as follows : 

1. Ten dollars must be raised by the friends and patrons of the 
public school applying for a library, ten dollars must then be provided 
by the County Board of Education out of the general county school 
fund, and ten dollars will then be provided out of the State appro- 
priation for this purpose, making thirty dollars for each library. 

2. For the enlargement of libraries already established five dollars 
must be provided by the friends and patrons of the school, five dollars 
by the County Board of Education from the funds of the school dis- 
trict applying for the library, and five dollars by the State Board of 
Education from the State appropriation for this purpose, making 
fifteen dollars for supplementing libraries already established. 

3. Upon application of the County Superintendent a neat bookcase 
with lock and key must be provided for each library from the county 
school fund. 

4. Not more than six new libraries shall be established biennially 
in any county, and not more than six libraries already established 
in any county shall be entitled biennially to the benefits of the appro- 
priation for enlarging and supplementing libraries, but, after the end 
of each biennial period, libraries and supplementary libraries that 
have not been taken by the counties entitled to them become available 
to any other counties, irrespective of the number of libraries or sup- 
plementary libraries already established in those counties. 

5. Books for rural libraries must be selected from the lists of books 
approved by the State Superintendent of Public Instruction. Such 



/. Y. Joyner 45 

lists have been carefully prepared and printed, and are distributed 
from his office. 

6. Each library must have a local manager, usually the teacher in 
charge of the school, who conducts the library in accordance with 
rules and regulations prepared by the State Superintendent, is held 
responsible for the safe keeping of the books, and is required to 
make such reports as the State Superintendent of Public Instruction 
shall direct. During vacation, the library is placed in charge of some 
reliable resident of the school district. 

7. Rural districts and towns with less than one thousand in- 
habitants are entitled to the benefits of the rural library act. 

THE GROWTH OF THE MOVEMENT. 

The following brief table will give some idea of the growth of 
the rural libraries in North Carolina : 

Total number of libraries to date established under the law . . 974 
Total number of supplementary libraries to date established 

under the law 194 

Total number of libraries established by private subscription 

without aid of State appropriation 107 

Total expenditures for libraries since 1901 . $31,380 

Approximate number of volumes in rural libraries 90,CXD0 

Number of pupils enrolled in schools having libraries 66,232 

There are rural libraries in every county in the State except one. 
Forty-seven counties have the total number of libraries available from 
the appropriation of the four preceding years, and eight have already 
taken the maximum number allowed for the next two years, avail- 
able only since March, 1905. In addition to the libraries established 
by aid of the State appropriation 107 rural libraries have been estab- 
lished by voluntary subscription and private donation. 

No progressive step yet taken in public education in North Caro- 
lina has proved more popular and more beneficial than the establish- 
ment of these rural libraries. By the act of 1901 they have been made 
a permanent part of the educational system of the State. Under the 
present act it will be possible within a few years to have a thirty- 
dollar rural library, enlarged and supplemented every two years by a 
fifteen-dollar supplementary library in every public school in North 

4— c. E. 



4-6 Conference for Education in the South 

Carolina. In proportion to the amount of it, the investment made in 
these rural libraries is probably yielding and will continue to yield a 
larger interest for the benefit of the public schools than any other 
investment made for public education in this generation. These 
thousands of books, masterpieces of thought and feeling and style, 
are daily going into hundreds of homes bearing to young and old 
their messages of hope, love, beauty, wisdom, knowledge, morality, 
reverence, religion and joy, cultivating a taste for good literature, 
forming the reading habit and leaving in their wake a touch at least 
of that higher culture which comes only from communion through 
books with the greatest minds and souls of the ages. In many a 
bookless school and home these libraries have proved a breath of 
fresh air, a gleam of glorious light, an inspiration to quicken ambi- 
tion, to arouse aspiration, to kindle hope and to set in motion forces 
the power of which no man can estimate. 

.SCHOOLHOUSE LOAN FUND. 

By act of the General Assembly of 1903, funds amounting at that 
time to about $200,000 arising from the sale of swamp lands belong- 
ing to the State Board of Education and all funds that may be here- 
after derived from that source, together with all the accruing interest 
thereon, was made a fund separate and distinct from the other funds 
of the State, to be known as the State Literary Fund, and to be used 
as a loan fund for building and improving public schoolhouses under 
such rules and regulations as the State Board of Education should 
adopt. One hundred thousand dollars of the fund, however, is in 
the form of a State bond not due until 1906, and only the interest 
thereon will, therefore, be available for loans until that time. From 
the sale of lands and other sources, however, the fund available for 
loans has been increased about $50,000 during the past two years. 

Under the provision of the act the loans are made by the State 
Board of Education to the County Board of Education, payable in 
ten annual installments, bearing interest at 4 per cent., payable an- 
nually, evidenced by the notes of the County Board of Education, 
signed by the Chairman and Secretary thereof and deposited with the 
State Treasurer. The loans to the school districts are made in turn 
by the County Board of Education. The payment of these loans to 
the State Board of Education is secured by making the loan a lien 
upon the total school funds of the county. The County Board of 



/. Y. Joyner 47 

Education to set apart out of the school funds at each January meet- 
ing a sufficient amount to pay the annual installments and interest 
falling due on the succeeding tenth day of February. The State 
Treasurer is also authorized, if necessary, to deduct a sufficient 
amount for the payment of any annual installment due by any county 
out of any fund due any county from any special State appropriation 
for public schools or to bring action, if necessary, against the County 
Board of Education, the tax collector or any person or persons in 
whose possession may be any part of the school funds of the county. 
The County Board of Education is secured by authorizing that Board 
to deduct the amount of the annual installment and interest due by 
any district to which a loan has been made from the annual appor- 
tionment to that district for school purposes, unless the district pro- 
vides in some other way for its payment. The act, therefore, abso- 
lutely secures from loss both the State Board of Education and the 
County Board of Education. Two annual installments of these loans 
have fallen due since the establishment of the fund. Every, cent of 
each installment, with interest, has been paid promptly each year by 
every county. 

Under the rules adopted by the State Board of Education for reg- 
ulating these loans not more than one-half of the cost of new school- 
houses and grounds or of the improvement of old schoolhouses will 
be lent to any county for any district. No loan is lent to any district 
with less than sixty-five children of school age, unless satisfactory 
evidence is furnished that such district is absolutely necessary on 
account of sparsity of population and the existence of insurmountable 
natural barriers. Preference is given 

(a) To rural districts or towns of less than one thousand inhab- 
itants where the needs are greatest. 

(b) To rural districts or towns of less than one thousand inhab- 
itants supplementing their general school tax by local taxation. 

(c) To districts supplementing their school fund by private sub- 
scription. 

(d) To large districts formed by consolidation of small districts. 

All houses upon which loans are made are required to be con- 
structed strictly in accordance with plans approved by the State 
Superintendent of Public Instruction. In fact, all new schoolhouses 
are now required by law to be constructed in accordance with plans 
approved by the State Superintendent and the County Board of 



48 Conference for Education in the South 

Education. Such approved plans for houses from one to eight rooms 
have been carefully prepared by skilled architects, and are sent out 
in pamphlet form from the office of the Superintendent of Public 
Instruction. These pamphlets contain cuts, diagrams and detailed 
bills of material, so that any carpenter of ordinary intelligence can 
easily construct any of the houses by the information contained in 
the pamphlet. 

HOW THE LOAN FUND HAS BEEN USED AND BENEFITS DERIVED FROM IT. 

The following brief table will show how this Loan Fund has been 
used during the past two years and the benefits derived from its use : 

Total amount of loans to date $152,083.00 

Number of counties to which loans have been made. . . .yy out of 97 
Number of districts in which buildings have been secured 

or greatly improved through aid of this fund 407 

Number of new schoolhouses built with aid of loan .... 361 

Total value of buildings secured by aid of loan fund. . . . $421,426 
Number of districts in which new houses have been built 

where there were no houses before 187 

Number of districts in which there were old houses valued 

at less than $50.00, including "log houses, shanties, 

tenant houses (quotations are from applications)". . .116 

Number of consolidated districts aided ' yi 

Number of local tax districts aided 57 

All districts, except seventeen, to which loans have been made are 
distinctly rural or include small towns of less than five hundred 
inhabitants. 

From the above facts it will be seen that by lending $152,083 to 
seventy-seven counties, 361 districts have been aided in securing 
public schoolhouses valued at $421,426, thus adding that amount to 
the value of the public school property in those counties. In other 
words, by lending $152,083 public school property valued at nearly 
three times that amount has been secured. This would seem to be a 
first-rate business investment for public education. 

This Loan Fund has proved a great stimulus in improvement of 
schoolhouses, grounds and equipment, and a great encouragement 
to consolidation and enlargement of districts and to local taxation. 



/. Y. Joyner 49 

'Without the aid of it many districts would probably have been un- 
able to secure good houses for years without greatly decreasing the 
length of the school terms, and some of these would have been un- 
able to secure respectable houses without closing their schools entirely 
for one or two years. The better houses and equipment have been 
secured at once arid can be paid for on easy terms in ten annual 
installments. 

When the hundred thousand dollars borrowed by the State is 
repaid in 1906 this will be available for loans. In addition, the pro- 
ceeds arising from future sales of swamp lands belonging to the 
State Board of Education will be available for this purpose. As the 
annual installments of the fund are repaid, together with four per 
cent, interest, they will be lent to other counties and other districts 
entitled to loans. These annual installments now amount to about 
$20,000 and will, of course, annually increase as the fund increases. 
North Carolina has, therefore, a perpetual loan fund for building, 
improving and equipping public schoolhouses, amounting now to 
about $20,000 a year ; within the next five years it will probably 
amount to about $50,000 a year and will continually increase each 
year by the accumulation of the annual interest. 

Through the use of such a fund to supplement the building fund 
already available from the general county and district funds and from 
the individual efforts of public-spirited patrons, I see no good reason 
why, under wise administration, there shall not be provided within 
the next decade or so, certainly during the present generation, a 
respectable, comfortable, well-equipped public schoolhouse in every 
district of reasonable size in the State. This Loan Fund seems to me 
to be a wise and practical plan for helping the counties and the dis- 
tricts to help themselves to supply within reasonable time such 
schoolhouses and equipment. The facts show that the counties have 
not been slow to avail themselves of this opportunity. I believe that 
no wiser use could be made of this money, that from no other use of 
it could so great and permanent benefits have been derived. 

As the years go by I believe that it will appear more and more 
clearly that no school legislation has been enacted in North Carolina 
that has proved and will continue to prove more helpful to the public 
school system of the State. It is not too much to say that in the 
benefits derived from its use the Loan Fund has surpassed the expec- 
tations of its most ardent advocates. I most heartilv commend it to 



50 Conference for Education in the South 

my fellow workers in other States. We are building in North Caro- 
lina new schoolhouses in accordance with the principles of modern 
school architecture at the rate of more than one a day. For this 
purpose, as the above facts indicate, we are largely indebted to the 
Loan Fund for Building and Improving Public Schoolhouses. 

The Chairman read a telegram from Mr. W. H. Holloway, Super- 
intendent of Public Instruction of the State of Florida, as follows : 

"Greetings, and regrets. Consolation in my absence. Besides the 
constitutional provision for support of common schools, Florida's 
Legislature appropriates outright $100,000 for the improvement of 
rural schools. BeSt wishes for success of the meeting. Cordially." 

Mr. I. W. Hill, Superintendent of Education of Alabama, read a 
paper on "Rural School Districts," and told of an interesting work 
in that State by the Federation of Woman's Clubs in promotion of 
the interests of education in the rural districts.* 

IMPROVEMENTS IN LOUISIANA. 

J. B. ASWELL, 

State Superintendent of Public Education of Louisiana. 
One year ago, in Birmingham, I had the privilege and honor of 
stating to this Conference that the people of Louisiana hoped to 
accomplish three things : First, to raise more money for the public 
schools ; second, to improve school supervision ; third, to build bet- 
ter schoolhouses for all the children. That hope has brightened into 
a faith that takes no denial and accepts no conditions. It has been 
partly fulfilled. The total school fund of the State has been increased 
$265,000 by local taxation and by State appropriation. School super- 
vision has been improved by the passage of a law requiring the super- 
intendent to be a person of high moral character and a practical 
educator, whose salary shall not be less than $600 per annum. The 
superintendents are drawing salaries from $600 to $2,000, and 
many of the superintendents are now school men. The third point, 
and the one to which I have been especially assigned today, is the 
buildinsr of schoolhouses. 



*In some unaccountable wa}'- the manuscript of Superintendent Hill's paper 
was lost, and he has been unable to reproduce it for the press. 



/. 6^. Aswell 51 

We accomplish this purpose by local taxation. The amount of 
local taxation during the past year has been increased 90 per cent., 
and the increase of school buildings has been $110,000. We are 
raising revenues also for the school by the equalization of assessment. 
The increased assesment of New Orleans within the past few months 
is more than $11,600,000. The increase in other parts of the State 
has been in the same proportion. Thi^ gives larger revenue and more 
school money. High license for the sale of liquors has also, in some 
instances, been applied to building schoolhouses. 

The accomplishment of these three purposes is a preparation for 
the highest work of the school, namely, placing in the county school 
highly trained and qualified teachers. We know that the school- 
house is a mighty influence in affecting the quality of the teachers 
who are to v ..din in the schools. 

We believe that education is not an accomplishment, but an 
achievement— an achievement of individuals for the common good. 
We know that it is a long and_ difficult struggle, a struggle of vicis- 
situdes of success and defeat, but we believe that the highest work 
that the State can accomplish is the work done among its children 
in preparing them for future citizenship. The people of the State 
are generally aroused on the subject of public schools, and they are 
willing to do their part well in equipping and maintaining good 
schools for children of all classes and conditions. They believe that 
the purpose of the school is to give the power of self-realization, so 
that the individual may be strong enough for self-assertion in the 
State and large enough to recognize that individual success depends 
upon the effort of each individual to bless and uplift his fellowmen. 

RECENT SCHOOL LEGISLATION IN TEXAS AND A 

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEMS NOW BEFORE 

THE SCHOOL MEN OF THE STATE. 

R. B. Cousins, 
State Superintendent of Public Instruction of Texas. 

A bill recently passed both the House and the Senate of Texas, 
now awaiting the approval of the Governor of the State, who is 
entirely friendly to the measure so far as I know, contains the changes 
or improvements in the school laws of Texas mentioned herein 
below : 



52 Conference for Education in the South 

The whole subject matter of the school laws of the State was 
referred to a joint sub-committee of the two branches of the Legisla- 
ture, which committee labored assiduously and intelligently and in 
perfect harmony with the Department of Education. The result of 
the deliberations was a most excellent bill, according to the standard 
of measuring such things commonly accepted among educational 
leaders of the country. As is usual in such cases, the bill as finally 
passed was not so good a measure as was offered by the committee, 
but it marks a step forward in education in Texas. 

Some of the features of the new law may be stated as follows : 

1. It harmonizes by repeal or otherwise the inconsistencies that 
have crept into the laws from time to time, whereby there existed 
much difficulty in the interpretation and administration of the laws. 
It codifies in some sense all the existing school laws, and brings 
related parts into consecutive chapters and paragraphs or sections. 

2. The law provides that in counties having no County Superin- 
tendents the County Judges shall perform the duties of County 
Superintendents as far as possible, allowing him a maximum ex- 
officio salary of $600 per year. Heretofore the right to establish or 
abolish the office of County Superintendent has been exclusively in 
the hands of the County Commissioners' Court, composed of four 
Commissioners, presided over by the County Judge, who usually 
guides the court. If the Judge, therefore, desires to keep the county 
schools under his control for the sake of the salary or the good of the 
county, the courts rarely establish the office. The new law requires 
the court to submit the question of establishing the office to a vote 
of the people of the county, when petitioned to do so by two hundred 
qualified voters of the county. The office can be abolished in the same 
way only, and that after ten years of trial. This is not what we 
desired, but it occasions intelligent and wholesome discussions, 
through which progress may be made in the right direction. 

The bill as it came from the Senate provided that professional 
supervision should be established in all counties having 5,000 schol- 
astic population, but it was changed in the House to read as indicated 
above. 

3. In Texas we have one peculiar plan known to few States. It is 
known as the Community System. In brief it is this : A teacher 
desires to teach in a certain neighborhood. He writes a petition to 
the County Judge or Superintendent, and upon the petition he writes 



R. B. Cousins 53 

the names of three persons whom he desires to be appointed trustees, 
together with a Hst of the names of the children who wish to attend 
his school, and a hst of the names of the parents of those children. 
Upon this petition the school is established for a year. The new 
law abolishes this plan and substitutes districts, to be formed by the 
Commissioners' Court, of any size not less than sixteen square miles 
of territory. I am sorry to say that the bill as amended and passed, 
however, provides that any or all of these twenty-seven Community 
Counties may by vote rid themselves of districts and resume the 
present chaotic conditions. There are some intelligent people in these 
counties, however, who claim to believe that this is the only plan that 
can be operated in those counties. Doubtless a few of these counties 
will vote back into the community plan, but only a few. 

4. The new law restricts and limits the evil of transferring children 
from one district to another. 

5. It provides that common school districts may levy bonds for 
building and repairing schoolhouses, and allows counties to lend 
county funds to districts for building houses. 

6. It provides for the enrollment and teaching of children over 
seven years of age, instead of eight. 

7. It strengthens the institutes and summer normals, and provides 
for the extension of teachers' certificates by faithful attendance upon 
institutes and summer normals and faithful performance of duty 
while attending the same. 

8. It simplifies the process whereby cities and towns may assume 
control of their schools, and provides that these may enlarge their 
boundaries for school purposes only. 

9. It provides for the consolidation of districts and the establishing 
of schools above the primary grades through the uniting of two or 
more districts and a cooperation of district trustees and County 
Superintendents. 

10. It places independent school district bonds on an equal footing 
with United States, State and county bonds as an investment of the 
permanent school fund. 

11. It allows independent school districts to elect superintendents 
or supervising principals for a longer term than one year. 

We are organizing a campaign in Texas for the purpose of stimu- 
lating the people to supplement the State and county apportionments 
by local taxation, and for the purpose of assisting in a general move- 



54 Conference for Education in the South 

ment for better schoolhouses and better equipment for the rural 
population. We are to discuss and advocate a constitutional amend- 
ment which will allow the counties to levy taxes for school purposes. 
We hope through this means to have the counties play a helping part 
in the general scheme of public education, by helping the weaker 
districts to increase their school terms, and by establishing high 
schools under rural conditions with courses of study correlated with 
the children and rural homes. By this means, also, we hope to bridge 
the chasm between the elementary school and the university, which 
now separates the boys and girls in the rural homes from the higher 
institutions of the State. We expect, further, to stimulate the build- 
ing of industrial schools for all children in the State who stand in 
special need of this kind of instruction. It is our purpose to indoc- 
trinate the people very thoroughly on the question of expert super- 
vision for the county schools. * 
Some of our difficulties are these : 

1. Indifference to educational need which exists pretty generally 
throughout our country. 

2. The double system for the two races which must be maintained 
throughout the South greatly increases the burdens and discourages 
efforts along all lines of educational progress. 

3. The monumental size of our State, containing conditions rang- 
ing from those of border civilization to those of the most highly 
developed centers, the peculiar problems arising from the over- 
lapping of two civilizations along our western territory, from the 
gulf to the New Mexican mountains ; in many instances these condi- 
tions intensify the evils of both and neutralize the good influences of 
each. All these present new and perplexing problems. 

4. Poorly informed writers and speakers, and designing persons, 
have taught our people very thoroughly that our matchless school 
endowment now valued at $46,000,000, if properly managed, would 
furnish adequate school facilities for the 765,966 school children of 
the State. It will require much labor to eradicate this error and 
plant the truth in its stead. 

Add to these conditions the fact that we have democracy carried 
to its last analysis, in that we elect all the school officers by popular 
vote except the teachers and the city school superintendents, and that 
our areas of school government are small, and you can begin to esti- 
mate the tremendous force represented by even one degree of 



/. H. Hinemon 55 

progress throughout the State. The conditions have led to the 
estabHshing of multitudes of independent school districts in which 
the spirit has become restive and which have refused to wait for the 
tardy progress of the whole people. Hence we have in Texas the 
greatest range in point of excellence. 

But with it all we have a cosmopolitan population composed of 
some of the best blood and brains of all the States and of some of 
the nations. Our people are intelligent and progressive, facing the 
future with hope and courage. Our borders are wide, fitly typifying 
our invitation to all good people. We welcome them from every- 
where, when they come to cast their lots with us and to help us to 
work out the great destiny which is manifestly ours. 

The Chairman, representing the State of Tennessee, discussed the 
subject of "Consolidation of Districts."* 

CAMPAIGN FOR SCHOOL TAXATION. 

J. H. Hinemon, 

State Superintendent of Public Instruction of Arkansas. 

We bring you a message of encouragement and hope from the 
great commonwealth of Arkansas. During the past twelve months 
we have erected 265 schoolhouses, varying in cost from $150 to 
$40,000. The reports of the County Examiners of our State show 
that 75 per cent, of all the licensed teachers of the State attended 
the teachers' institutes or summer schools last summer. School 
properties have increased in value about one half million dollars. In 
all parts of the State local taxation is voted regularly for the support 
of the public schools.' The Constitutional Convention of 1874 placed 
a maximum rate upon both the State and local taxation for the sup- 
port of public schools. Nearly every locality in the State is voting 
the highest constitutional amount. 

The present Legislature has passed a resolution submitting an 
amendment to the State Constitution, which, if carried, will increase 
the school revenues about 50 per cent. "A bill for establishing a State 
Normal School passed the Senate, with only two opposing votes, but 

*The manuscript of this address was unfortunately lost and could not 
be reproduced. 



56 Conference for Education in the South 

failed in the House by a few votes. We still entertain the hope that 
the present Legislature will make provisions for the establishment 
of a normal school before final adjournment. A bill appropriating 
$50,000 to be used as State aid for high schools has passed the 
Senate, and it is believed it will be passed by the lower branch of the 
General Assembly. The present Legislature has passed several 
measures which will add the revenues from various sources to the 
general school funds. 

The State has a permanent school fund of about one and one-quarter 
million dollars. This consists of Arkansas bonds, the only debt owed 
by the State being held by the State Board of School Commissioners. 
There is a general awakening throughout the State with reference 
to the imperative needs of the public schools, and all classes of our 
citizenship are uniting in a determined effort to provide better salaries 
for the teachers, better teachers for the schools, and better school- 
houses and equipments. It is a very common thing for a town of 
1,500 or 2,000 people in our State to erect a school building ranging 
in cost from $10,000 to $25,000. The State Bar Association, at a 
recent meeting, devoted an entire session to the discussion of the 
needs and demands of the public schools. The Federation of Wo- 
men's Clubs in our State is doing active and valuable service in 
promoting the cause of popular education. The present Legislature 
has made the largest appropriation ever given to our State Uni- 
versity. 

The material resources of our State are being rapidly developed, 
thereby increasing the taxable wealth, which in turn adds largely to 
the public school revenue. We boast with pride of our great re- 
sources. We have coal fields which rival those of Pennsylvania. 
We have timber lands of immense value covering large areas of 
territory. We have very rich and productive soil. We have taken 
the premium over the world on cotton, apples, peaches, and various 
other products of our State. We believe, however, that the greatest 
resource of the State is to be found in the brains of our boys and 
girls, and we intend that every energy of the State shall be used in a 
persistent effort to secure a proper training for our children. 

We bring you the glad news that Arkansas is keeping fully abreast 
with her sister States of the South in their onward march in educa- 
tional progress. 



A. C. True 57 

At the conclusion of the Superintendents' meeting, the President 
of the Conference resumed the chair and introduced to the audience 
Dr. A. C. True, of Washington, D. C. 



THE TEACHING OF AGRICULTURE IN THE PUBLIC 
SCHOOLS OF THE SOUTH. 

A. C. True^ 
Director U. S. Office of Experiment Stations. 

The desirability of teaching agriculture in the public schools of 
the South should be considered with regard to both the needs of 
farmers and the wisest development of the schools. Speaking first 
with regard to the requirements of agriculture, I believe it is per- 
fectly safe to assert that conditions prevail in the South, as elsewhere 
at home and abroad, which make education in the principles and 
practice of this art very important. As long as there was abundant 
free and virgin land the making of a livelihood by farming in this 
country was so simple and easy that any man, however ignorant, 
could hardly fail to support himself as a farmer. But in recent years 
agricultural conditions have rapidly changed. The land which the 
Government has to give away is either remote from markets, too 
arid to' be productive without expensive irrigation, or worthless for 
agricultural purposes. Improvident management of the land already 
occupied, due largely to the fact that the farmer has felt until re- 
cently that when he had exhausted one piece he could easily transfer 
his crops to another, has brought many of the farms, especially in the 
Eastern States, to a condition where they require either costly fertil- 
ization or skillful treatment to maintain or restore their fertility. 

Formerly, when agriculture was the predominant industry over 
vast regions of this country, almost all the needs of the farmers' 
family were met by the products and industries of the farms, and the 
supply of labor was abundant and cheap. But the days when such 
things as cloth, leather, clothes, utensils, and vehicles were made on 
the farm have passed away forever. Even such industries as butter 
and cheese-making are leaving the farms. Moreover, a large number 
of needs which a simpler civilization did not know must now be sat- 
isfied to make the farmers contented with their lot. 



58 Conference for Education in the South 

In many ways the spread of manufactures in the South is making 
it necessary for the farmer to compete with new industrial forces and 
will more and more compel him to equip himself for a more effective 
industrial warfare if he is not to sink in the social scale. 

Already in the South, as in other parts of the country, we hear 
complaints of the growing scarcity of efficient farm labor. On the one 
hand, something must be done to make the conditions of farm life 
more attractive in order to hold capable workers on the farms ; and on 
the other hand, there must be an increasing ability to secure and suc- 
cessfully manage a large amount of farm machinery, much of which 
is costly and complicated, thus requiring special training and intel- 
ligence for its economical use. 

Agriculture in this country is developing in two directions, and in 
whichever of these ways the farmer chooses to go, he must know 
more than his predecessors in order to be successful. Our farming 
is becoming either specialized or diversified. Dairying, fruit grow- 
ing, truck raising, poultry culture, and other specialized forms of 
agriculture are to be encouraged under proper conditions, but they 
call for expert skill and knowledge which at present comparatively 
few farmers possess. The old-type one-crop farmer'is having a hard 
time to maintain himself, and as his land becomes poorer will be in 
worse plight with the lapse of years. Diversification of crops and the 
introduction of animal industry are the requirements for the improve- 
ment of agriculture in the South generally, but this means the learn- 
ing of much that is new and a greater ability to adapt means to ends. 

Within the past thirty years a new factor has come in to greatly 
accelerate agricultural progress and to benefit those farmers who are 
able to take advantage of it. During that period there has been de- 
veloped a great system for the discovery of definite ways in which 
scientific principles can be applied to agricultural practice, and 
already the agriculture of this country has been widely and pro- 
foundly modified by the results of experimental investigations. These 
investigations now touch every branch and phase of agriculture and 
a great host of intelligent farmers are profiting by them. But the 
masses of our farmers do not yet appreciate their value, and the peo- 
ple generally do not realize how profoundly work of this character is 
affectine the economic conditions of our agriculture. 



A. C. True 59 

The publications of the United States Department of Agriculture 
and of the State Agricultural Experiment Stations, the lectures at 
the Farmers' Institutes, and the agricultural press reporting what 
investigators have done, reach perhaps one farmer out of ten in the 
United States, but a much smaller number than this are as yet directly 
moved to change their practice by such means. And the men who are 
in closest touch with this movement are now thoroughly convinced 
that agricultural science can never have a complete and satisfactory 
influence on agricultural practice until the masses of our agricultural 
population are trained in early life to understand the importance of 
close observation of the world in which they live and the relation of 
scientific principles to the art of agriculture. In some way the mists 
of prejudice and traditional routine must be dispelled from the 
mind of the farm child and he must be taught that he can so under- 
stand the facts and operations of the natural world with which the 
farmer must deal as to improve the practice of the ancient art of 
agriculture and put it in line with the other progressive industries of 
the twentieth century. To create a hopeful attitude of mind among 
agricultural people and turn their outlook toward the future instead 
of toward the past, to which in all ages and countries the farmers 
have hitherto too exclusively looked, this is the great problem pre- 
sented by the present economic condition of our agriculture, as 
related to the discoveries of modern science pertaining to this art. 

Such being the conditions of agriculture which call for the special 
training of the farmer, it is important to consider whether there is 
any likelihood that our public school system will be made an efficient 
instrument not only for raising the general intelligence of our rural 
population, but also for giving them instruction directly relating to 
agricultural principles' and practice. 

In this connection, it is well to bear in mind that a system of 
public education intended to reach all the children in communities 
occupying a large territory is a comparatively new thing. While the 
beginnings of the public school system of the United States are found 
about the middle of the seventeenth century the thorough organiza- 
tion of free schools for the country generally covers a period ol 
scarcely fifty years. The law which is giving Virginia an effective 
free school system was passed in 1870, and it is interesting to note 
that the same year the parliament of Great Britain took steps to give 



6o Conference for Education in the South 

that country for the first time a general system of public schools. It 
is difficult even now for many intelligent persons to bring themselves 
to believe that the State should compel parents to send their children 
even for a short time to any kind of school, or that it is wise to pro- 
vide anything more than the simplest rudiments of education for 
people generally at public expense. 

Such educational methods and curricula as are generally found in 
our public schools today have been developed very largely in con- 
nection with a system of education intended to meet the needs of a 
limited portion of the community, and especially of those children 
whom it was desired to train for life-work outside the industries 
which must necessarily occupy the attention of the vast majority of 
men and women. It would seem, then, that the newness of our public 
school system and the history of its development would naturally 
lead to the conclusion that it is hardly probable that we have at- 
tained as yet to that form of public school organization best adapted 
to meet the needs of the great masses of our people. And it is just 
this conclusion which is being reached by educators, philanthropists, 
and statesmen who have broadly studied our free schools. 

Another factor which is beginning to exert a powerful influence 
on the public school system of this country is connected with the 
development of our industries and the growing realization of our 
people that the real basis of modern civilization is laid in highly- 
organized industries which demand for their most successful prose- 
cution general intelligence and special training for all our people. 
And it is also being realized by practical men, as well as by educators 
and students of economics, that the progress of our industries and 
successful competition in the world's markets depend more and more 
on the application of science, in a wide way, to all branches of indus- 
try. In fact that this means that the individual workers, as well as 
the leaders, shall have their eyes open to the relations of science to 
practice, and understand the principles on which progressive practice 
must depend. The men behind the ploughs and the looms, as well 
as behind the guns, should know why they work as they do and be 
alert enough to meet the emergencies which arise out of the routine 
order. In this way it may be truly said that our industries generally 
tend more and more to be put on the plane formerly occupied by the 
so-called learned professions. The farmer and the artisan have now 
the strongest kind of inducements to become learned men, and their 



A. C. True 6i 

children can fairly claim the right to be put in the path of industrial 
learning at an early stage. And, if we are to have any general 
system of free schools, herein lies a powerful argument for shaping 
their curricula to meet the requirements of industrial life. 

From the days of Plato and Aristotle every correct system of 
pedagogy has maintained that organized education should provide 
for the training of the whole man — body, mind and soul. Gymnas- 
tics and military drill have been used in schools from time imme- 
morial for the training of the body — and these exercises are good for 
future soldiers, lawyers, and clergymen. But it is now seen that the 
body may be trained as well through school exercises in the practice 
of agriculture, carpentry, cooking and other manual arts. The prin- 
ciple is the same as in the olden time, but its application to the indus- 
trial civilization of the twentieth century is being modified by our 
school men. 

The education which emerged from the monasteries of the middle 
ages was almost exclusively concerned with the written, and later 
the printed page. While theoretically it sought to train the powers 
of observation and induction, it forgot that naturally such training 
would best be found in the great world outside of the schoolroom 
and the monk's cell. Our educational leaders have at last waked 
up to see that observations of nature, manual exercises an4 practical 
work are truly educative, though the Greeks and Hebrews knew this 
long ago. And so the courses of study for all grades of schools are 
being overhauled, and in the cities of the United States nature study 
and manual training are firmly established branches of the public 
school system. 

The general conclusion regarding the scope of instruction in the 
public schools which has been reached by our progressive educa- 
tional leaders is well summed up by the professor of the history and 
art of teaching in Harvard University, Paul H. Hanus, in a recent 
book entitled "The Modern School." 

The education demanded by a democratic society today is an 
education that prepares a youth to overcome the inevitable diffi- 
culties that stand in the way of his material and spiritual advance- 
ment; an education that, from the beginning, promotes his normal 
physical development through the most salutary environment and 
appropriate physical training; that opens his mind and lets the 
world in through every natural power of observation and assimi- 
lation ; that cultivates hand power as well as head power ; that 

5— C. E. 



62 Conference for Edtication in the South 

inculcates the appreciation of beauty in nature and in art, and 
insists on the performance of duty to self and to others ; an 
education that in youth and early manhood, while continuing the 
work already done, enables the youth to discover his own powers 
and limitations, and that impels him through oft-repeated intel- 
lectual conquests or other forms of productive effort to look 
forward to a life of habitual achievement with his head or his 
hands, or both ; that enables him to analyze for himself the intel- 
lectual, economic and political problems of his time, and that 
gives the insight, the interest, and the power to deal with them as 
successfully as possible for his own advancement and for social 
service ; and, finally, that causes him to realize that the only way 
to win and to retain the prizes of life, namely, wealth, culture, 
leisure, honor, is an ever-increasing usefulness, and thus makes 
him feel that a life without growth and without service is not 
worth living. 

"That is to say, the education demanded by democratic 
society in modern times must be a preparation for an active life. 
Now, the only real preparation for life's duties, opportunities, and 
privileges is participation in them, so far as they can be rendered 
. intelligible, interesting, and accessible to children and youth of 
school age ; and hence the first duty of all education is to provide 
this participation as fully and as freely as possible. From the 
beginning such an education cannot be limited to the school arts — 
reading, writing, ciphering. It must acquaint the pupils with his 
material and social environment, in order that every avenue to 
knowledge may be opened to him, and every incipient power 
receive appropriate cultivation. Any other course is a postpone- 
ment of education, not education. Such a postponement is a per- 
manent loss to the individual and to society. It is a perversion of 
opportunity and an economic waste." 

It is thus seen that the trend of modern educational progress is 
decidedly favorable to the introduction of instruction in agriculture 
into our public schools, wherever this industry is an important factor 
in the industrial life of the community. The leading countries of 
continental Europe have already realized this and have widely in- 
troduced the teaching of agriculture into secondary and elementary 
schools maintained with public funds. The simplicity of our agri- 
culture and the formative stage of our public school system have 
delayed this hitherto in the United States. 

Meanwhile, however, the foundations for a comprehensive system 
of agricultural education in the United States have been firmly laid 
through the work of the agricultural colleges and experiment stations 



A. C. True 63 

and the United States Department of Agriculture. By the work of 
these institutions, a large mass of accurate data regarding the theory 
and practice of agriculture has been accumulated, and is now rapidly 
being summarized in manuals and reference books. Thus a long step 
has been taken toward the formulation of school courses in agri- 
culture adapted to 'American conditions. Twenty years ago almost 
all American books on agricultural subjects were based on English 
works. Today there is a large American literature of agriculture. 

Efficient courses of instruction in agriculture of college grade have 
been worked out and there is great activity in extending and im- 
proving the educational enterprises of the agricultural colleges. A 
considerable body of graduates of these colleges are giving their 
attention to teaching and the number of students is rapidly increas- 
ing. The agricultural colleges have, moreover, in recent years 
awakened to the realization that it is their duty to take the leadership 
in promoting the general diffusion of agricultural education among 
the rural population. They are, therefore, engaging very widely in 
various forms of extension work, through short courses, farmers' 
institutes, etc. Summer schools and other courses for teachers con- 
stitute a regular part of the work of a number of agricultural 
colleges in the South. Through their Association of American Agri- 
cultural Colleges and Experiment Stations they have undertaken the 
formulation of courses in agriculture for secondary and primary 
schools. Individual colleges are maintaining agricultural high 
schools or are aiding in the establishment of such schools in their 
respective States. Teachers in these colleges have prepared text- 
books for use in elementary schools and published leaflets and bulle- 
tins containing many valuable suggestions for lessons and practical 
exercises in nature stiidy and elementary agriculture. It is, there- 
fore, much easier for rural communities and teachers to introduce the 
teaching of agriculture into the public schools than it was even five 
years ago. And already we have a considerable number of successful 
examples of elementary instruction in agriculture in various parts 
of the United States. 

The rural communities generally now contain a large and increas- 
ing number of farmers who have received what they regard valuable 
information from the agricultural colleges, experiment stations and 
farmers' institutes, and they are, therefore, favorable to agricultural 
education for their children. The multiplication of railroads, tele- 



64 Conference for Education in the South 

phones, free mail delivery, and the prompt reception of daily and 
weekly papers has already awakened in the minds of multitudes of 
farmers a desire for the general improvement of the conditions of 
rural life, including the public schools. Moreover, the rapid con- 
gestion of population in our cities has roused a strong sentiment there 
that something must be done to make country life more attractive to 
both natives and immigrants. School officers have discovered that 
the development of our rural schools has been very superficial and 
that a strenuous effort should be made to give the rural schools some- 
thing like the effective organization attained in the city schools. 
Manual training having won the day in the city schools, it is now far 
easier for school superintendents to favor, the introduction of agri- 
culture into the country schools. The agricultural colleges, school 
officers, farmers and city people are now coming together and work- 
ing in unison for the passage of laws favoring agricultural instruc- 
tion in the public schools. Already not less than fifteen States have 
laws authorizing such instruction, and among these States are Vir- 
ginia, North Carolina, Alabama, Louisiana, Florida, Maryland, and 
Tennessee. South Carolina requires agriculture as one of the sub- 
jects for State teachers' certificates. Georgia and Alabama make it 
compulsory to teach agriculture in all rural schools and have adopted 
agricultural textbooks. It is stated on good authority that about 
12,000 children in North Carolina received some instruction in agri- 
culture last year. Secondary or high school instruction in agricul- 
ture is given in a number of negro schools scattered throughout the 
Southern States. Alabama has for a number of years maintained 
agricultural schools of this grade for white students in the several 
Congressional districts, and has thus laid the foundation for an 
effective system of secondary education in agriculture in public 
schools. 

The present situation regarding secondary and elementary instruc- 
tion in agriculture in the South, as elsewhere in the United States, 
may be summed up as follows : 

Beginnings have been made of legislation, organization of courses 
of instruction, training of teachers, preparation of textbooks and 
apparatus, and successful examples of efiicient instruction have been 
given. The tide of public opinion in favor of such instruction in the 
public schools is rising and the time is ripe for a wide extension of 
this work. Fortunately for the South this movement has reached an 



A. C. True 65 

effective stage at the very time when an earnest effort is being made 
to secure the general improvement of the pubHc schools of this region. 
The fact that the public school system of the South has not passed 
out of its formative stage may make it comparatively easy to speedily 
secure the general organization of this system. to fit the industrial 
needs of Southern communities. Herein lies a great opportunity to 
base a public school system on the practical needs of the masses of 
a great democratic community at present largely engaged in agri- 
cultural pursuits, rather than on the supposed literary requirements 
of the few leaders in church and State. 

The experience gained in this country and abroad indicates that 
public agricultural education in the several Southern States should 
be organized on some such plan as the following : 

(i) One agricultural college for each race in each State, con- 
nected with which should be an experiment station. These institu- 
tions should be of high grade and have the authority to grant degrees. 
In them should be trained the leaders and teachers of agricultural 
progress. These institutions are already in operation. 

(2) Agricultural high schools — say from six to ten in each State, 
according to area and population engaged in agriculture. These 
should be secondary schools and should not be permitted to denom- 
inate themselves colleges or to grant degrees. They should have 
farms on which good methods of agricultural practice and demon- 
strations of useful results of experimental investigations should be 
illustrated, but they should not undertake the management of ex- 
periment stations. Their course of instruction should cover two or 
three years. About one-third of the student's time should be given 
to agricultural studies and practice, and the other two-thirds to such 
studies as are ordinarily pursued in high schools and academies. The 
agricultural high schools should be located with reference to dom- 
inant agricultural industries of different regions and the facilities for 
cheap transportation of students to and from their homes. In these 
schools should be trained a large number of boys and girls who will 
return to the farms and make farm homes which shall be the centers 
of local progress in agriculture and civilization. 

(3) Agricultural instruction of secondary grade in public high 
schools established by towns in or near rural communities. This will 
provide shorter courses in agriculture than will be given in the agri- 
cultural high schools and will partially meet the needs of many 



66 Conference for Education in the South 

farmers' children who cannot afford to go away from home for their 
education. 

(4) Nature study and elementary agriculture in the rural common 
schools. On the ordinary basis of a course of eight grades or years 
in the common schools, at least one hour per week should be given 
to nature study in the first six grades and to elementary agriculture 
in the seventh and eighth grades. This study should be mainly for 
the purpose of training the pupils' powers of observation, awakening 
a sense of the intimate association of the farmers' business with the 
forces and phenomena of the natural world, inspiring a love of 
country life, and raising agricultural work above the level of 
drudgery. Children thus trained would naturally in after life seek 
to improve their condition as farmers by education in higher schools 
or through the information coming from experiment stations and 
agricultural press. 

(5) Farmers' institutes for the adult rural population. 

This system of agricultural education will not, as many have 
falsely supposed, do away with what educators generally regard as 
the essentials of a good education. Reading, writing, mathematics, 
the English language and literature, history, geography, the elements 
of natural science, drawing, and music will still be taught in the 
proper grades of the public common and high schools. The friends 
of agricultural education are only demanding that agriculture shall 
be given a place in the public schools such as progressive educators 
have already accorded to various arts and industries. If it is well 
that mechanic arts should be taught in public schools, as they are 
already widely taught, agriculture which engrosses the attention of 
more than 10,000,000 workers in the United States, one-half of whom 
are in the South, can surely claim the right of recognition in the 
public schools of rural communities. 

We take our stand with those educators who claim that experience 
has already shown that by a wise selection of topics and skillful 
teaching, the essential subjects in the old school schemes can be bet- 
ter taught than at present, and at the same time room be made for 
useful instruction in subjects directly related to the industries of our 
people. Indeed, the teaching of such subjects as agriculture, by 
bringing under consideration subjects with which the children are 
familiar, may be made a means of aiding the teaching of other sub- 
jects by giving them greater concreteness. 



A. C. True 67 

Especially in the elementary schools, it is not the amount of time 
nor the number of topics taught in nature study and agriculture that 
is important, but chiefly the creation of interest in the world imme- 
diately about the school and the establishment of right relations to 
the great modern movement of progress in agriculture. 

Without doubt special training in the theory and practice of agri- 
culture is very desirable for teachers in the rural school, yet it is not 
necessary that this training should be elaborate in order to enable 
them to give useful instruction in agriculture in the elementary 
schools. A love of nature and country life, a sympathetic interest 
in agriculture, and a willingness to utilize in some earnest way the 
existing facilities for elementary agricultural teaching will go far 
toward atoning for any defects in technical training. There are now 
sufficient elementary textbooks and other aids to instruction in 
agriculture to enable almost any earnest and intelligent teacher to 
give a useful course in agriculture in the common school. A sum- 
mer's vacation spent at an agricultural college or a short course in 
this college at some other time will greatly aid the rural teacher in 
such work. 

In urging the introduction of agriculture into the common schools, 
I am well aware of the present deficiencies of these schools. Agri- 
culture will not be taught generally and efficiently in the rural schools 
until they have been generally improved. They must have longer 
terms, better teachers, better buildings, grounds, and equipment. As 
far as possible the small schools must be combined to form consol- 
idated schools, to which the pupils should be transported at public 
expense. It is in the consolidated rural school, with its more 
thorough grading and more extensive equipment, that we shall expect 
to have the greatest development of elementary instruction in agri- 
culture in the near future. Public money spent in transporting pupils 
to such a school is far more economically, efficiently and wisely used 
than in building a little schoolhouse at every cross-roads. 

Such a system of public instruction in agriculture as I have out- 
lined will require relatively large school revenues, but the experience 
of European countries and of our wealthier States has conclusively 
shown that every dollar spent in maintaining a system of public edu- 
cation which directly promotes the industries of the people yields 
a great return in increased and widely diffused material prosperity. 

But I should be far from urging the teaching of agriculture in our 



68 Conference for Education in the South 

public schools solely for its material benefits. It is rather because 
such instruction will tend to raise the masses of our population out 
of sordid and benumbing drudgery and give them a stimulating im- 
pulse toward a higher and wider intellectual and moral life that I 
deem it most important that the industries of life should have their 
place in the common school. For it is one of the auspicious indica- 
tions of a brighter future for mankind that the discoveries of modern 
science are tending to enable the average man to find in the occupa- 
tion by which he earns his daily bread a source of intellectual study 
and delight. And it is on this higher ground that the friends of 
agricultural and other forms of industrial education should work 
for the improvement of our public school system and the recognition 
of the industrial arts as efficient instruments for the education of free 
citizens in a democratic state. 

Announcement was made by the Chairman of the following com- 
mittees : 

Committee on Resolutions — Dr. S. C. Mitchell, of Virginia; Hon. 
S. I. Bowie, of Alabama, and Supt. S. A. Mynders, of Tennessee. 

Committee on Nominations — Dr: E. A. Alderman, of Virginia; 
Dr. Wallace Buttrick of New York; Supt. J. Y. Joyner, of North 
Carolina ; Supt. J. B. Aswell, of Louisiana ; Dr. J. E. Russell, of New 
York ; Chancellor Walter B. Hill, of Georgia, and Supt. O. B. Mar- 
tin, of South Carolina. 

A telegram was read from Dr. J. M. Taylor, President of Vassar 
College, as follows : 

"Regret that engagement prevents my being at Columbia. No 
greater work than yours confronts the nation. All blessings on it 
and you." 

The Conference then took a recess till evening. 



THURSDAY EVENING. APRIL 11 



Session at the Columbia Theater. 

The Conference was called to order at 8 130 o'clock and the Chair- 
man introduced, as the first speaker of the evening, Superintendent 
Phillips, of Birmingham, Ala. 

THE HIGH SCHOOL IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM 
OF THE SOUTH. 

John Herbert Phillips, 

Superintendent of Public Schools, Birmingham., Ala. 

Twenty years ago it would have been necessary for me to begin 
this paper with a defense of secondary education— an apology for the 
high school as a department of the public school system of the South. 
Then we were confronted with arguments against it : The free 
public school was unconstitutional ; if the people wished for their 
children' an education beyond the three R's, they should pay for it ; 
our forefathers had never intended to furnish a liberal education to 
all the youth of the State at the expense of the taxpayers. Oc- 
casionally we hear these stock arguments of twenty years ago 
repeated today — fortunately only by a decreasing contingent of 
belated citizens, but the progress of the public high school during the 
past two decades provides all the refutation required. 

A little over a year ago, before the Southern Educational Asso- 
ciation at Atlanta, Commissioner Harris read an interesting statis- 
tical paper upon the growth of the public high school in the Southern 
States. According to these statistics, the entire South, including 
Missouri and West Virginia, in 1890, had only 343 public high 
schools, with 23,832 students. In 1902, twelve years later, the num- 
ber of high schools had increased to 1,378 — more than four times as 
many as in 1890, and the number of students had increased to 88,262. 

These statistics, however, need a word of explanation. The vast 
majority of the secondary schools reported to the Bureau of Educa- 



70 Conference for Education in the South 

tion are not high schools in the true sense of the term, but schools 
in which a few secondary subjects are taught in connection with 
elementary schools. We must take into consideration the tendency 
to advertise as high schools institutions that are essentially primary, 
and the widespread vice of announcing as colleges and universities 
schools that in actual work are too often below the grade of the high 
school. Notwithstanding these facts, it must be admitted that the 
high school idea in the South has had a wonderful impetus during 
the past few years, and there is abundant evidence of the fact that 
the movement is rapidly gaining in popular favor. 

The rapid development of the high school in the public school 
system of the South has a deeper significance and a wider influence 
than the superficial observer of great educational movements is 
likely to admit. In the first place, this high school movement in the 
South indicates that the people are becoming increasingly conscious 
of their civic needs and obligations, as well as of their industrial op- 
portunities. They are realizing that in order to possess their indus- 
trial and commercial heritage, they must comply with certain 
indispensable conditions expressed in terms of knowledge and skill, 
brain development and hand training. This movement is also a pos- 
itive assertion and a clear demonstration of the fundamental principle 
of democracy. It is not the result of a mere political theory, guided 
by the policy of the State, but the expression of popular impulse, the 
product of the spontaneous activity of the people. The movement 
did not originate in legislative action. Indeed, the majority of the 
Southern States have as yet made no provision for the high school, 
either in their constitutions or by general legislation. In some 
States, at least, the high school has sprung into existence in spite of 
constitutions and legislatures, and always in response to the de- 
mands of the people. It is natural that this development should 
first manifest itself in our cities and towns, where facilities are avail- 
able for organization and for maintenance by local support. The 
movement is now rapidly extending to the smaller towns and vil- 
lages, and to the more prosperous and cultured rural communities. 
The high school having thus, through popular initiative, become 
in fact a part of our public school system, some of the States are 
already providing for its maintenance and administration by general 
legislation. 



John H. Phillips 71 

But, notwithstanding the rapid growth of the high school, it has 
as yet been brought within the reach of only a small fraction of the 
youth of the South. It is still largely confined to the cities and 
incorporated towns. The youth of our villages and rural com- 
munities are dependent upon private seminaries or denominational 
institutions for the opportunity of secondary education, and the ex- 
pense incurred for board and tuition in these institutions naturally 
limits their patronage to the few and restricts the opportunities of 
the masses to the work of the elementary school. The old academy, 
once so prevalent and so efficient throughout the country, is rapidly 
disappearing, and the fitting schools and seminaries that have sup- 
planted it have not succeeded in filling its place. The only institution 
that can adequately provide secondary education for the masses of 
our youth is the public high school. 

In a few of the cities of the South, public high schools are main- 
tained for the training of negro youth who have completed the ele- 
mentary course. In 1902, according to the report of the Bureau of 
Education, there were 5,259 negro students enrolled in Southern high 
schools. This number does not include those attending private and 
denominational schools, established and maintained by private and 
organized philanthropy. Many of this class of schools have found 
it necessary to resort to tuition charges for maintenance, and are still 
languishing for the lack of adequate support. In the case of a large 
number — perhaps the majority — of these institutions the entire 
amount of the benefaction has been invested in building and equip- 
ment, leaving the school without endowment and dependent upon 
tuition charges and voluntary contributions for a precarious sup- 
port. The attendance, in consequence, is decreased, and the invest- 
ment must bring diminishing returns, notwithstanding the annual 
begging pilgrimages of principals and trustees. The presence of 
these splendid but half-starved and poorly-attended institutions has 
too often been made a pretext, if not a valid reason, for the failure 
of many a community to provide public high school facilities for its 
colored population. 

It is my deliberate judgment that the majority of our cities and 
towns would willingly establish and maintain negro high schools if 
they could command the means. If the buildings and equipment 
were provided, they would gladly pledge themselves to their main- 
tenance. It must be remembered that the high schools established 



^2 Conference for Education in the South 

for white youth in many of our cities and towns have inherited the 
old academy buildings, but in the majority of instances the high 
school building has been made possible only by bond issues — taxes 
levied upon the future. The maintenance of a school by taxation is 
comparatively simple when the provision is once made; the chief 
difificulty is in getting the building. If these noble benefactions for 
the promotion of the secondary and higher education of the negro 
were entrusted to the State, or to our municipal Boards of Education, 
conditioned upon the adequate maintenance of high schools by local 
taxation, and the proper supervision of the same, I am convinced 
that such investments would bring largely increased returns. Be- 
sides, such schools would no longer exist as alien institutions, apart 
from popular concern ; they would no longer suffer for the lack of 
local sympathy, and languish on account of their isolation from the 
life of the community. Mr. Carnegie's policy in the establishment 
of libraries may be commended to all educational philanthropists, 
individual and corporate, who have the welfare of both races at 
heart, and who desire to render their benefactions efficient and pro- 
ductive. Such a plan would promote educational economy, by the 
prevention of waste, and would harmonize these benefactions, 
whether for white or colored, with the traditions and institutions of 
the community, thus rendering them more effective in promoting 
the welfare of their intended beneficiaries. 

With the exception of local taxation, the high school problem is 
perhaps the most important today in Southern education. There 
are some, perhaps, who may object to strenuous activity in the in- 
terest of secondary education, on the ground that our elementary 
schools are not yet sufficiently developed ; that we need to bring an 
efficient primary school within the reach of every child before we 
direct our energies and our means to the establishment and main- 
tenance of secondary schools. The history of the high school in this 
country sets at rest this objection. Invariably, the development of 
the high school has reacted favorably upon the primary school. It 
has awakened deeper and more intelligent interest in general edu- 
cation and has developed greater willingness to contribute by taxa- 
tion for all school purposes. It has stimulated the boy in the primary 
class to look upward, and by bridging the chasm between the ele- 
mentary school and the college, it has enabled the child in the 



John H. Phillips 73 

remotest rural district to see an unobstructed highway to the very 
doors of the university. 

In order to make the high school an efficient factor in the public 
school system of the South, there are several favorable conditions to 
be secured : 

1. We need the' reenforcement of the democratic impulse by help- 
ful legislative action. The popular will must crystallize into official 
recognition by the legal reclassification of the constituent parts of 
the State's educational system. In most of our States the statutes 
make provision only for the common school and the university. The 
chasm between the two still remains unbridged. In many instances, 
it is true, the attempt is made, under one teacher, to expand the 
common school course to cover the field of the high school and of the 
college, and to include as a possibility everything from the alphabet 
to Homer. We need, first of all, the legal recognition of the high 
school as a distinct department of our school system. Some of our 
State universities are doing a noble work in promoting the establish- 
ment of high schools, and in articulating their curricula with those 
of the college. 

2. We further need legislative action that shall stimulate the 
establishment and encourage the maintenance by taxation, general 
and local, of high schools that shall be accessible to the youth of 
every community, rural as well as urban. In part, at least, this may 
be accomplished, as has been done in many of the Eastern and West- 

. ern States, and already in some Southern States, by providing a 
special fund, which shall be appropriated exclusively for the aid of 
high schools, conditioned upon the maintenance of a high school by 
local support in each community so aided. Such general aid by the 
State thus becomes a premium upon local initiative and self-help. 

3. We also need the stimulation of intelligent and cooperative 
effort in the organization of rural communities, for the promotion of 
free transportation of pupils, and the consolidation of small and 
inefficient rural schools into strong and well-equipped institutions, 
with a high school department as the capstone of each. 

4. Another important need today is to render the high schools 
already established more effective in the life of the community. We 
need to adapt the curriculum to the requirements of the people, by 
making it subserve the present and the future, as well as the past. 
The high school of todav, while it reveres the ideals and traditions 



74 Conference for Education in the South 

of the past, must adjust itself to the requirements of the present and 
of the future. Whatever else the high school may do, or may not do, 
for the pupil or for the community, it must meet the needs of prac- 
tical everyday life. 

In the large cities of our country, we find the high school making 
its appearance in three distinct typical forms. First, we find the 
literary high school, including the English and classical departments, 
mathematics and natural science. Second, the manual training high 
school in which the technical feature is dominant. Third, the com- 
mercial high school in which the requirements of business and com- 
mercial life determine the courses of study. These three types are 
found today in some of the large cities of the country as separate 
schools. These types must be represented in the high schools of the 
South. In order to meet the practical needs of the students and the 
demands of community life, the modern high school must have its 
literary, its manual training, and its commercial departments. By 
thus broadening the scope of the high school, we make it more 
practical ; by making it more practical, we adapt it to the needs of a 
larger number of pupils, and thus increase its service and efficiency 
to the community and the State. 

But we must not forget that this development of the high school 
on the practical side must also largely increase the cost. The 
cheapest kind of education is mere book learning. It costs but little 
to teach physics and chemistry and biology from textbooks, but 
to equip physical, chemical and biological laboratories is expensive.. 
To provide tools and machinery for the various forms of manual 
work in wood, metals, and textiles, considerably increases the cost 
of education. Besides, high school teachers that combine the prac- 
tical with the theoretical will always command higher salaries. To 
make the high school more practical is to make it vastly more ex- 
pensive. On the other hand, it is well to remember that a cheap 
high school, in the end, is by far the most expensive, both to the 
individual and to the community. 

The necessity for extending and strengthening the high school 
as an organic part of our public school system will appear obvious 
to the student of Southern development for three important reasons : 

I. The high school is needed as an economic factor. During the 
last decade, the South has witnessed an industrial revolution. South 
Carolina, for instance, both in her manufactures and in her agri- 



John H. Phillips 75 

culture, has quadrupled her per diem earnings for each individual in 
her population. Other Southern States have shown similar progress. 
This development is due to the introduction of machinery, to im- 
provement in the means of transportation, and to better methods in 
agriculture. The South is no longer content to remain a mere drudge 
in the industrial field ; she is no longer satisfied to produce the raw 
material for the manufacturers of the world. She is determined to 
develop her native resources into finished products, ready for the 
markets of the world. This policy demands a higher grade of intel- 
ligence and skill. While the common school increases personal 
efficiency, by developing mental alertness and versatility, and by 
enabling the man to lift himself out of the channel of m.ere drudgery, 
it does not adequately equip the individual for the stern demands of 
this age of machinery. The common school simply provides the in- 
struments of knowledge ; the high school is needed to train the child 
in the use of these instruments and in their application to the arts 
of life. The high school must make the man behind the machine 
superior to the machine. 

The idealist may condemn this material function of the high 
school as unworthy; nevertheless, it is the essential and most press- 
ing need of the hour. We must never forget that the ideal, whether 
in personal character or public institutions, in civil organization or in 
social or moral culture, must rest upon a firm material foundation. 

2. The high school is needed as a social and civic factor. While 
the industrial activity of the individual constitutes the first element 
of his usefulness to the State, it is not the highest. Through economic 
service, man must rise to perform duties of more vital import to the 
life of the State. He is a social being and must exercise an influence 
upon his associates. By his high school education he is better 
equipped with social power, and by his higher civic ideals he is 
adapted for leadership in the duties of patriotic citizenship. The 
economic problems of the South may be complex, but her civic prob- 
lems are grave, and will require for their right solution the most 
serious thought of an educated citizenship. We need the high school 
as an agency in the social and civic development of the State. 

3. Lastly, we need the high school as a factor in the promotion of 
the moral life of the community. The highest function of secondary 
education is not economic ; neither is it civic. The production of 
wealth and the development of citizenship are important ends of the 



76 Conference for Edncation in the South 

school, but they are not the highest nor the noblest. The child does 
not exist for the State, but the State, with all its institutions, social 
and civil, with all its wealth of undeveloped resources and finished 
products, is an organism expressly created for the benefit of the 
child. The noblest function of the high school, therefore, is the 
complete development of our youth into manhood and womanhood, 
that shall have power to transmute material wealth into moral and 
spiritual values in the life of the State. 

It will be noted that I have had little to say, thus far, of the high 
school as a fitting school for college or university. This function of 
the high school is important, and there is little danger at present 
that it will be ignored. On the other hand, we need an occasional 
reminder of the fact that with the masses of the people, who must 
be at once the supporters and the beneficiaries of the high school, 
preparation for college is not the chief end of man. While our high 
school courses must be broad enough to include the traditional re- 
quirements of college preparation, they must also be flexible enough 
and elastic enough to touch with vital force the practical concerns 
of community life. While they stimulate the individual to enter the 
enchanting domains of higher culture, they must not neglect to pro- 
vide for the largest number possible, the power of self-adjustment to 
their surroundings, as well as those higher ideals of work and duty 
that shall become dynamic forces in the industrial, educational, civil, 
and moral life of the commonwealth. 

The Chairman : I would not presume to add a single word to 
this beautiful address that has commanded our attention, but would 
simply remark that the subject discussed by Dr. Phillips is one that 
by the logic of events is fastening itself upon the thought of this 
Conference as most important for the study, not only of educators, 
but of all the people desirous of promoting education. 

I desire to call particular attention to the exhibit of the local 
schools of Columbia installed upon the second floor of this building 
by the superintendent, teachers and scholars of this city. It pre- 
sents something worthy of notice and of the appreciative interest 
of all visitors. 

We will now resume the regular program and hear from Mr. W. 
H. Hand. 



W. H. Hand 77 

SOME ARGUMENTS FOR COMPULSORY EDUCATION. 

W. H. Hand, 
Superintendent of Schools^ Chester, S. C. 

This audience need not be reminded that my arguments are made 
with special reference to the South, and I wish to add that I offer 
them specially to the Southern contingent of this audience. 

Thirty-five States and Territories of the Union have compulsory 
school attendance laws of some kind. West Virginia and Kentucky 
are the only States which may be called Southern which have such 
laws.* The South stands isolated, so to speak, in a matter which 
has become almost universal in the remaining States of the Union. 
It is worthy of remark that an examination of the proceedings of the 
National Educational Association for the past ten years shows 
scarcely a reference to compulsory school attendance. The same 
is true with reference to the leading educational journals of the 
United States. This fact shows that the South has not yet reached 
that point in her educational progress already in the past life of the 
East and the West. But the mere fact that other sections of the 
Union have enacted school laws unknown to us of the South is of 
itself no conclusive evidence that we should enact such laws. Any 
argument for or against compulsory attendance must be based on 
conditions as they exist. 

Let us make our argument in answer to four questions: i. Is 
there any evident need for compulsory education in the South? 
2. Could compulsor}^ attendance be successfully enforced? 3. Is it 
right to compel attendance? 4. Is compulsory education repub- 
lican ? 

First. Is there any evident need for compulsory education in the 
South? I know that there are those who contend that the educa- 
tional conditions in the South are matters for congratulation, if 
we but eliminate the negro from our exhibit. Let us make a brief 
study of the conditions in the South, confining ourselves strictly 
to the native white population born of native white parents. 



*Only Missouri, outside the Southern States, is without any form of com- 
pulsory attendance — not counting Oklahoma and Indian Territory. There 
are, however, a few scattering counties and small cities under special compul- 
sory attendance laws. 



6— c. E. 



78 Conference for Education in the South 

Several tables for comparative study are introduced. In these 
tables the eleven so-called Southern States are taken as a group, 
with no compulsory school attendance. Virginia, North Carolina, 
South Carolina, Georgia and Mississippi are taken as representa- 
tive States of the South. Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Con- 
necticut are taken as representative of New England, each with a 
compulsory attendance law enacted years ago, requiring an at- 
tendance of twenty-four to thirty weeks each year for six years, and 
enforced by means of heavy penalties. Michigan is taken as a type 
of the newer West, with a compulsory attendance of sixteen weeks, 
enforced somewhat rigidly. Kentucky is taken as a specimen of 
recent compulsory attendance of but eight weeks, enforced by means 
of very light penalties. 

Table A.- — Native white illiterates over lo years of age : 

Southern States 959.799 12.4 Per cent. 

Virginia 95,583 ii-4 

North Carolina i7S,32S i9-6 

South Carolina 54,i77 i3-9 

Georgia 99,948 12.2 

Mississippi 35,432 8.1 

Massachusetts 3,9i2 0.5 

Rhode Island 1,196 i.o 

Connecticut 1,958 0.6 

Michigan 12,154 1.5 

Kentucky 166,822 13.9 

It is to be remembered that in several of the Southern States the 
number of illiterate native whites approximates very closely the total 
vote cast in these States in the Federal election in 1904. What of 
the voters themselves? 

Table B. — Native white illiterates of voting age: 

Southern States 307,236 12.2 Per cent. 

Virginia 35.057 12.5 

North Carolina 54-2o8 19.0 

South Carolina 15,643 12.6 

Georgia 31.914 12. i 

Mississippi 11,613 8.3 

Massachusetts 1.927 0.6 

Rhode Island S5o 1.2 

Connecticut 1,040 0.9 

Michigan 6,406 2 . 2 

Kentucky 62,182 15.5 



IV. H. Hand 79 

No sound thinking man would claim that education is a panacea 
for political ills, nor can it be said that an illiterate man is neces- 
sarily not a good citizen. But in a democracy where manhood suf- 
frage prevails, institutional life must be badly handicapped when 
12 per. cent, of the voting population is illiterate. All that ignor- 
ance stands for has to be met — narrowness, bigotry, and selfishness. 

Now, it might be claimed, that the younger generation of native 
whites makes a better showing, and needs no compulsory education. 
Here are the figures : 

Table C. — Native white illiterates between 10 and 19 years of age : 

Southern States 262,590 

Virginia 23,108 

North Carolina 45,632 

South Carolina 17,839 

Georgia 25,941 

Mississippi 10,212 

Massachusetts 416 

Rhode Island ' 100 

Connecticut 160 

Michigan 1,141 

Kentucky 33,400 

The opponents of compulsory education tell us that our people 
will send their children to school without being compelled to do it, 
if they once see their duty and their obligation to their children. 
For more than fifteen years many of our ablest and safest leaders, 
men and women, have been tireless in their efforts to get the chil- 
dren of the South into school. If the average child fails to get to 
school between the age of 10 and 14, his chances for an education 
are poor. What is our condition after these years of effort? 

Table D. — Native white children between 10 and 14 years of age not in 
school : 

Virginia 25 Per cent. Massachusetts 6 Per cent. 

North Carolina 32 Rhode Island 9 

South Carolina 2>^ Connecticut 7 

Georgia 32 Michigan 8 

Mississippi 25 Kentucky 22 

Southern men, and Southern women ! Are we content to send out 
into the world at the unseasoned age of 20 years 262,590 illiterate 
native white boys and girls? People of South Carolina with our 



8o Conference for Education in the Sotith 

17,839 illiterate young white boys and girls; Virginia with your 
23,108; Georgia with your 25,941; North Carolina with your 45,- 
632 ! What a load you carry when you pit yourselves in generous 
rivalry against Massachusetts with only 416 illiterate young white 
boys and girls ; against Rhode Island with only 100 ; against Con- 
necticut with only 160; and against Michigan with 1,141 ! 

Again, people of the South, can we afford to thrust these 262,590 
illiterate white boys and girls out into a world enriched by the 
progress in the arts and sciences reaching back over a century itself 
rich in discoveries and inventions? How can we expect them to 
win with untrained hands and vagrant minds ? We are sending out 
our young Samsons shorn of every lock. 

Poverty and stress of war cannot be urged as a palliative for the 
illiteracy of the children who ought to be in school today. Who 
are these children ? We all remember Dr. Walter H. Page's "The 
Forgotten Man" in his "The Rebuilding of Old Commonwealths." 
In many cases these children are the descendants of the forgotten 
men. They became a neglected mass; and the neglected mass in 
turn has become the indifferent mass. When any considerable num- 
ber of men in a State become indifferent to the intellectual, and 
moral, and social conditions of themselves and their offspring, the 
situation becomes alarming. 

Illiteracy, like every other evil, tends toward perpetuating itself. 
And one of the unpromising features of this already gloomy pros- 
pect is, that in most of the Southern States the illiterate females 
outnumber the illiterate males. An illiterate mother does not augur 
well for the child of tomorrow. 

To this situation in the South there is yet one other condition, 
which speaks for itself. With natural resources such as to attract 
the attention of both labor and capital from all parts of the country, 
the South has actually lost in population in the exchange of citizens 
with other States. 



W. H. Hand 8i 

Table E. — The first column gives the natives of the given State now living 
in other States ; the second column gives the residents of the given State born 
in other States ; the third column gives the loss or the gain the given State 
has sustained. In this Table the total population is included. 

Southern States 3,421,660 2,762,508* 659,152 Loss 

Virginia 587,418 132,166 455,252 Loss 

North Carolina . . 329,625 83,373 246,252 Loss 

South Carolina 233,292 54,5i8 178,774 Loss 

Georgia 410,299 189,889 220,410 Loss 

Mississippi 296,181 215,291 80,890 Loss 

Massachuetts 299,614 401,191 101,577 Gain 

Rhode Island 61,358 78,903 I7,545 Gain 

Connecticut 142,254 . 150,948 8,694 Gain 

Michigan 288,737 407,562 118,825 Gain 

Kentucky 542,043 207,439 334,6o4 Loss 

Intelligent citizens are a State's most valuable asset. Several 
Southern States in order to compensate themselves for this loss 
of citizens, and to develop their resources, have established Bureaus 
of Immigration. Only intelligent immigrants are sought. Are we 
consistent in seeking intelligent immigrants and letting a large per- 
centage of our native citizens remain in the bondage of ignorance? 

Second. Could compulsory attendance be successfully enforced? 
Why not ask the same question about any law? The opponents of 
compulsory education insist that such law could not be enforced, 
because the people are not ready for such law. Would there be any 
use for this or any other law, if the people were all ready and wait- 
ing to obey it? Laws are enacted to compel men to do that which 
they ought to do but will not do voluntarily. Tens of thousands 
of people in America are not obeying the Ten Commandments ; are 
we to justify this disobedience by saying that the people are not 
quite ready for the Decalogue ? 

Compulsory education has for some time been the law in England, 
Scotland, Canada, France, Austria, Germany, Switzerland, and Italy. 
These countries require attendance at school from eight weeks to 
full terms, for from four to eight years. The government reports 
force us to believe that the laws are reasonably well enforced. Bet- 
ter evidence still is the reduced percentage of illiteracy in these 
countries. 



*Texas has gained 620,141 by the exchange with other States, thereby reduc- 
ing the total loss to the South. 



82 Conference for Education in the South 

A study of the foregoing tables ought to convince the most skep- 
tical that compulsory education has aided materially in giving Mas-' 
sachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut so much lower rate of 
illiteracy than exists here in the South. Kentucky's showing helps 
to establish this claim. Her compulsory laws have been enforced 
by means of light penalties. Too, her laws are of more recent date, 
therefore, her best showing is made in the lower percentage of 
children not in school. This, too, despite her considerable mountain 
population. 

Third. Is it right to compel attendance? No one regrets more 
than I do the tendency to shift from the home those functions that 
properly belong there. One of those functions is to train the chil- 
dren for their duties in the social organism. Society itself is em- 
perilled whenever its members enter it unfitted. One of the essen- 
tials of fitness is what we call education. Therefore, whenever the 
home refuses or neglects to prepare the child for society, it is not 
only the privilege but the duty of the State to see that the child is 
fitted for its part in society. 

The State has already performed part of its duty. It has pro- 
vided the schools. The schools are maintained by taxation, and 
the collection of all taxes is by compulsion. When the State compels 
the parent to send his child to school, it is simply compelling the 
parent to put the child in possession of the child's own rightful in- 
heritance. In a narrow sense that inheritance is his right to the 
benefit of what the State has collected and set apart for him. In a 
wider and truer sense it means his right to make of himself all that 
his God-given abilities will permit him to be. 

The State compels the' parent to feed and clothe his child's body, 
and who questions the State's right or wisdom in doing so? May 
not the parent be compelled to do something for his child's mind? 
The State carries the law-breaking child to jail to protect society. 
Has not the State as much right to carry the child to the schoolhouse 
to train him to benefit society ? 

Just here the demagogue gets in one of his insidious fallacies : 
That compulsory attendance would work hardship in the homes of 
the poor. Is it not a fact that the poor child is the very one who 
most needs the aid of the State in bringing him into his rightful in- 
heritance ? He it is who must soon face the complexities of modern 
life with none of the advantages common to wealth or birth. He is 



Natalie Curtis. 83 

the very one whom the State ought to help. Much of the argument 
against the right of the State to do what only the State can do for 
a child is simple sentiment, and some of it is simple sophistry. 

Fourth. Is compulsory education republican? Some persons are 
exceedingly anxious lest we should introduce into our government 
machinery something practiced by some ancient aristocracy, or sug- 
gested by some modern monarchy. Compulsory education laws are 
often opposed on the supposition that they came from monarchical 
Prussia. Both Massachusetts and Connecticut had compulsory at- 
tendance laws before Frederic William of Prussia was grown. In 
its origin compulsory education is as much republican as monarchi- 
cal; in its spirit it is entirely republican. Compulsory education 
seeks to break down caste, and to destroy artificial distinctions ; it 
seeks to lift all up, and to hold none down ; it dignifies all ; it culti- 
vates all ; it fits all ; it rewards all. 

The Chairman : Perhaps the most imperative demand that 
will find its way through my associates to the Chairman's desk is 
that others of the Conference than those on the printed program 
shall be heard. This is a specially difficult task to meet, as your 
Chairman knows by some interesting past experiences ; but I take 
the liberty to interrupt the regular program just now by a response 
to this demand. I am very happy indeed to make this first interrup- 
tion in the interest of the ladies, and in this instance I am to have the 
privilege of presenting a lady member of our party to this audience. 
I simply desire to say that in some realms of art, as well perhaps as 
in knowledge of nature, the lady I shall present has extended her 
studies into the far West; has investigated the Indians of Arizona 
by actual residence .among them, and has gotten out of their life 
some very beautiful things concerning which she will probably have- 
something to say. I have great pleasure in presenting to the audi- 
ence Miss Natalie Curtis, of New York." 

THE INDIAN CHARACTER REVEALED IN MUSIC. 

Miss Natalie Curtis. 

It is a great privilege, but it is no light task, to treat of a very 
large subject in a very few words. Yet at a Conference that has 
at heart the education of the American people, it is perhaps not 



84 Conference for Education in the South 

all unfitting to give a passing thought to those first Americans who 
are all in school — in the hard school of transition. 

To most of us, the Indian seems very remote, yet it behooves us 
to give a thought to the education of the red man, not only for the 
Indian's sake, but for our own as well ; for those of us who 
have lived among the Indians, and have studied Indian life in its 
truest aspect, are convinced that the Indian has something to bring 
into our civilization. He can be a tributary stream which, if turned 
into the broad channel of our culture, can form a strong current 
of national individuality. When first I went among the Indians, 
it was as great a surprise to me as, perhaps, it will be to some of 
you, to learn that here at our doors were legends admitted by scholars 
to be as fair as those of the Greeks ; poetry striking in its origin- 
ality of subject, and music as rich and varied as any folk music in 
the world. One must see to believe; one must hear to be con- 
vinced. May I, therefore, give you an example of Indian thought 
as expressed in poetry and song? There is perhaps no phase of 
Indian life so generally misunderstood as the Indian upon the war- 
path. We have been brought up to think of the Indian as a scalp- 
ing fiend. It comes, perhaps, as a surprise to learn that many of 
the war songs — in fact almost all that I have studied — are prayers 
to the Supreme Being for protection, expressions of sorrow for 
comrades slain in battle or outbursts of longing for loved ones left 
at home. Here is a song of the Kiowa Indians, one of the prairie 
tribes. Some warriors are on the warpath; they are overcome 
with homesick longing, when one of their party, a poor young man, 
with never a sweetheart to mourn his absence, compares his lot 
with that of the other warriors who are rich in the gifts of this 
woTld. They should be singing; they should be glad; he, alas, 
should be 'mourning. 

(Here Miss Curtis, in a sweet and cultured voice, sang in the 
Indian dialect, a song, the theme of which she had just outlined.) 

Here, by way of contrast, is a song from the Zuni Pueblo, an In- 
dian town discovered by Coronado in the sixteenth century. This 
song is sung by women as they grind their corn, calling for rain 
upon their arid lands that they may have corn in plenty. With 
sweeping, rhythmic motion they grind, gracing their toil with song. 
The words are 



Natalie Curtis 85 

"Yonder, yonder, see where the rainbow painteth bright the heavens. 
Hitherward, hitherward, hitherward, rain, come. 
Send it hither, white cloud, come : 
Now the corn plants murmur as they grow." 

Here is a spirited call to the thunder : 

"Come, thunder that maketh the earth to shake; 
Come that the corn maidens may help one another upward to grow." 

When I asked the Indian poet the meaning of the expression, 
"corn maidens," he said : "Yes, we call the young corn the maiden 
corn, and when it bears ears we call it the mother corn." "The 
corn maidens help one another upward to grow?" I asked, "How 
is that?" "By gathering with their little roots the moisture tmder 
the soil." 

So we have this charming picture of the corn maidens side by 
side in the field helping one another up to the sunlight. The Indian 
makes expressive gestures as he sings. 

(Miss Curtis, with inimitable grace and charming manner, ren- 
dered the song of the Pueblo Indians, which she sang with appro- 
priate gestures). 

Time does not permit me to give any more of the Indian songs, 
but I am sure that you will join me in the wish that we might place 
in the hands of every Am/erican child in school such poetry and 
such songs. We wish that every American might grow up with this 
folk music as part of his artistic heritage — -music which has sprung 
from the soil of our own country. 

Gladly would we see preserved to our descendants these songs of 
our own hills and plains. Yet is our strongest duty to the living 
Indian. Rather would we keep alive within the red man the im- 
pulse to the beautiful which is his birthright, than to place between 
bookcovers for our own posterity the most exhaustive record of a 
vanished art. If we would save Indian songs and poetry from ex- 
tinction, we must save from extinction Indian men and women. 
We must save Indian souls from degradation. And to do this we 
must awake public interest in the Indians. With the passing of 
the Indian, there will be lost to the nation an opportunity to enrich 
our culture with much that would help to make it distinctive ; there 
will be lost to humanity the unique and noble qualities of the Indian 



86 Conference for Education in the South 

character. There should be more such consecrated and unselfish 
workers as those who have made Hampton what it is — an inspiring 
example of perfect symmetry in education. For at Hampton, edu- 
cation is that true development of individuality which fits each per- 
son for his particular service in the world's work. We should have 
among the Indians teachers more of those whO' realize that the giv- 
ing and the teaching are not all on our side ; that we Anglo-Saxons 
are not the only people, and that wisdom will not die with us. 

The wise man is he who knows indeed that there are books in 
running brooks and sermons in stones, and that from primitive 
man cultured humanity can take many a lesson. The wise man 
knows that he teaches best who best knows how to learn. In teach- 
ing the alien and dependent peoples who are tO' become part of our 
country's life, can we not show greater thought for their own in- 
dividuality? Can we not so educate them that we take not from 
them that which they already have? 

Let us educate, indeed, imparting knowledge, developing thought 
and character, but in so doing let us not destroy. Hold we fast to 
all that is good ! 

The Chairman : I have now the privilege to present to the 
audience the Hon. Seth Low, former President of Columbia Uni- 
versity, and afterwards Mayor of New York. It will be our privilege 
to listen to him while he presents to us some phases of school history 
in New York city. 

SOME PHASES OF EDUCATIONAL HISTORY IN NEW 

YORK CITY. 

Hon. Seth Low. 

Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: 

I remember to have heard many years ago of a man in one of our 
States, I will not say which one, but having had some political ex- 
perience, I will say that it was not South Carolina ; nor New York. 
This man wanted to become a teacher in the public schools, and he 
went before the examining board for a teacher's certificate, and 
failed to pass. After a while some of his friends secured for him 
another opportunity to be examined, and unhappily he failed again. 
One of those who had exerted his influence in his behalf met him a 



Seth Low 87 

little later, and expressed surprise at his second failure. Said he : 
"Do you mean to say that you were examined the second time, and 
failed again?" "Why, yes," he said, "How could I help it? They 
asked me the same questions." Well, that man might have been 
examined as long as he lived, and they never could have made a 
teacher out of him, because he did not have the root of the matter 
in him. A man that cannot learn, cannot teach; and I used to say, 
when I was President of Columbia University, that, just as soon as a 
professor ceased to be a scholar, that moment he ceased to be of use 
in that university. A man who knows it all is really the most of- 
fensive creature that any of us have to meet ; isn't he? 

Now, we who have come down with Mr. Ogden from the North 
have come in the spirit of those who want to learn ; and I do assure 
you that not a man nor a woman of us all will go back home without 
new inspiration, new courage, new love for our country. After all, 
there are some questions as to which each part of the country may 
learn from the other. For instance, as a New Yorker, I listened 
with delight to our friend from Arkansas this morning, when he 
said they were conducting a campaign for higher taxation in the 
interest of education. The people of our community, Mr. Chair- 
man, have not reached that point yet. On the contrary, when 
Governor Odell, of New York, spent recently an unusually active 
campaign in promoting a new form of taxation, it was thought a 
humorous observation, when some one, in an after-dinner speech, 
spoke of Governor Odell, "With whom taxation is relaxation!" 
That is the highest pinnacle that we have been able to reach on this 
subject of taxation in the North. 

When I first moved from Brooklyn to New York, a lady whom I 
met in the latter city said to me, that life in New York always re- 
minded her of that passage in "Alice in Wonderland," where Alice 
finds herself in the domain of the Queen of the White Country. 
You may recall that Alice takes an active run, but suddenly stops, 
and says : "Why, here I am" ; and the Queen says : "Where did you 
expect to be ?" Alice replied : "In my country when one runs, and 
runs, and runs, he gets somewhere." "Oh," said the Queen, "In 
my country, you have to run, and run, and run, to stay where you 
are." 

It may perhaps occur to you, as a matter of surprise, that I should 
think that in the educational history of a community where there 



88 Conference for Edvication in the South 

is apparently so little progress, there should be anything that could 
be of service to the South ; and yet, most seriously speaking, I 
think there may be, because the city of New York is really an epi- 
tome of the American people. I like to say that its peculiar function 
among the American cities is to interpret Europe to America, and 
America to Europe ; which it can do, partly because it lies on the 
ocean's shore, but especially because, at its very core, it is, after all, 
a typical American city. Why, the President of the Ohio Society 
said to me one day, when I was Mayor, that there were 25,000 people 
from Ohio alone living in the city of New York. I told him that I 
felt sure that that was an under-estimate, because there were 45,000 
people on the city's payroll. I do not know whether you of the 
South have that idea of the Ohio man ; but we of the North are 
very slow to enter into the lists in competition with them. I have 
never had a warmer welcome anywhere than in the Southern So- 
ciety of the City of New York ; and one of those who were associated 
with me in the administration of the city was the President of the 
Confederate camp. So, then, in New York we really see the work- 
ings of the American people in the little ; and, watching them at 
work there, in the little, perhaps all of us can learn something that 
is worth while as to what is likely to take place in the large. 

Now, the history of public education in the old City of New York 
is unique, but very interesting, and I think very instructive ; and it 
is also very inspiring. I am not speaking now of Brooklyn, or of 
the other communities that have recently been absorbed into the City 
of New York ; because in these communities there is nothing excep- 
tional in the growth and development of the school system. But in 
historic New York, in the old City of New York, the New York of 
ante-revolutionary days, and of the years that have intervened, this 
is far from being the case. In the very earliest days, the Dutch 
schools were connected with the churches, to be sure, but they were 
really public schools. They were schools really open to all the chil- 
dren, and which all the children were free to attend, and were 
expected to attend. During the period of English supremacy, that 
situation changed ; and the only free schools were parish schools, 
in connection with the churches, for the children of the poor. The 
English established no such thing as a public school in the City of 
New York. It is not very strange that they did not. They never 
had any such system in England until 1870. So then, at the end 



Seth Low 89 

of the Revolutionary War, the City of New York had nothing re- 
sembHng public schools. It did have certain parish schools, con- 
nected' with the churches, all over the town. 

The first feeble, faint, movement towards public education was 
made in the establishment, in 1787, of a school for negro children. 
It may be interesting to this community to be reminded that most 
of these children were slaves ; for slavery was not abolished in the 
State of New York until 1795. Now, the fact that that school was 
established at all shows two or three things : First, it shows how 
the community at that time, although a slave-holding community, 
faced the problem of the education of colored people. And, because, 
for more than one hundred years, this separate school for colored 
children was established, separate schools for colored children were 
maintained by law in the City of New York ; and, although such 
schools are no longer maintained by law, there is still at least one 
school on the Island of Manhattan wholly attended by colored chil- 
dren and officered by colored teachers. The principal is a negro, and 
all the teachers are negroes. I speak of this, because I think that 
it will enable you to understand how readily the people of such a 
community can understand the feeling in the South, that, under the 
conditions prevailing here, the separate education of the two races 
is best for both. I have no doubt that that policy was followed for 
so long, in the City of New York, in the interest of both races there ; 
for I know of no other colored principal in the City of New York 
except the principal in charge of this colored school. The oppor- 
tunity that is thus offered to educated men and women of the colored 
race makes such a system as good for them as for the whites. Now, 
that is the first thing ; and how interesting it is that such a contri- 
bution should come to your problem from this old historic Dutch city. 

The next movement in the City of New York in the direction of 
public education was taken in the establishment, in 1805 — just a 
hundred years ago — the year of the foundation of your South Caro- 
lina College, of the New York Free School Society. To speak first 
of its name. You see, the whole idea was to offer free education to 
the children of the poor ; to reach the children of the poor that were 
not reached by the church parish schools. That Society continued 
to do its work, establishing school after school in different parts of 
the city, until 1826, when a very significant change in its name took 
place. It became then the New York Public School Society; 



90 Conference for Edtication in the South 

because, in that interval of a life more than twenty years, public 
sentiment had so developed in the City of New York that they were 
no longer satisfied to discriminate against the children of the poor, 
by offering to them only free education. What public sentiment de- 
manded was that public education should be free to every child, poor 
and rich alike ; and to every child in schools that all might attend. 
But when this society changed its name to the New York Public 
School Society, it had really written its own doom, because the 
moment the community laid hold upon that idea of public education, 
as distinguished from the free education of the poor, it was clear 
that the only agency that could offer public education to every child 
in the community, adequately and properly, was the community itself, 
acting in its corporate capacity. But, though this was suggested by 
the change of the Society's name, it was 1842, sixteen years later, 
before the Board of Education, as a public body, was established by 
law for the City of New York. Even then, the Public School So- 
ciety carried on its schools side by side with those of the Board of 
Education for eleven years more; but, in 1853, a law, passed by 
mutual consent, enabled the Society to surrender its schools into the 
keeping of the Board of Education, and the Society retired honorably 
from the field. So that it had taken from 1805 to 1853 for the City 
of New York to grow up to a public educational system as distinct 
from a private school system supplemented by a system of free edu- 
cation for the poor only. 

I think this is interesting, because it shows that, while the demo- 
cratic principle worked slowly, it worked certainly. It took nearly 
half a century for the City of New York to cover that distance; but, 
having started on the path, it never hesitated for a moment, until it 
had a public school system. The evolution of this very incomplete 
public school system, and some of the changes that have taken place 
in it since, may interest you. The Board of Education asked the 
Legislature, in 1847, ^or authority to take a popular vote as to the 
establishment of a free academy. That vote was had in 1847, ^"^ 
the vote in favor of it was 19,000, and the vote against it was only 
about 3,000. So that, away back in 1847, that question of whether 
a community should tax itself for more than the "three R's" was 
passed upon in the City of New York by a popular majority. And 
I venture the prediction that, wherever that proposition is put before 
an American community, in any part of the United States, I don't 



Seth Low 91 

care where, the people, by a large majority, will say: "We never 
will be content until all children, boys and girls, ni the community, 
can begin at the beginning, and go out, if you please, from the State 
University, at the top. We know that every boy and girl will not 
be able to do it ; but, God helping us, every one shall have the 
chance." 

Now, this Free Academy quickly became the New York City Col- 
lege. This was followed, soon after, by a Normal School for Girls, 
which became the Normal College. These two colleges were equipped 
with sub-freshman classes, so that boys and girls entered them 
direct from the grammar schools. Hence, there were no high schools ; 
and it may interest you to know that the old City of New York never 
had a high school until 1897. But the city was not satisfied to have 
its public school system out of line with the development of the 
public school system all over the country ; so that, in 1897, at last 
it established high schools ; and, having begun, it has done this 
work in its own effective fashion. Taking into consideration the 
new territories absorbed in 1898, there are now as many as twenty 
high schools in the City of New York. But that is not all. Most 
of the teaching done one hundred years ago was done by pupil 
teachers. Now, nobody can teach in a public school in the City of 
New York who has not had two years of professional training; 
because the people of the city do not want their children to have poor 
teaching. They want them to have the best that the city can pay for. 
Even this is not all. The city has established a system of night 
schools, which begins at the beginning and runs up through the high 
school grades. In one of these high schools, last winter, twenty-six 
different languages were the native languages of the pupils in at- 
tendance. That gives. you a little idea of the problems of New York. 
But even this is not all. These public school buildings used to be 
open only during the school day. Now they are open, day and night, 
on Saturdays as well as other days of the week, except Sundays — 
open for the usual school instruction in the mornings, and open in the 
evenings as recreation centers, as places where boys' and girls' clubs 
can meet. In every way, the buildings are used to get the full value 
out of them as centers of light in those parts of the city v/here the 
buildings stand. But even that is not all. They are used in summer, 
so that the children, otherwise in the streets, may be cared for. An 
effort is then made to teach the city child who grows up on the paved 



92 Conference for Education in the South 

streets, surrounded by brick houses, that there is such a thing as the 
country. Some of them see then for the first time a plot of grass. 
Some of them learn, for the first time, the difiference between a tree 
and a cow, so far as actual observation goes. And that is not all. 
The city has maintained now, for many years, public lectures for 
adults, which have been carried on during the last winter at 143 
different centers in the city, and these lectures, before the end of 
the season, will have been attended by a million and a half of people. 
These are not haphazard lectures, but courses of lectures, upon which 
examinations are held for all who wish to take such examinations. 

With the establishment of the high schools, it has become neces- 
sary to elevate the grade of the colleges, and the City of New York 
is now spending $5,000,000 for a new site and new buildings for the 
City College alone. It is only a question of a few years before the 
New York City College for Men and the Normal College for 
Women will be on a par with any college in the country in point of 
standard and of requirements. 

Now, these things I have told you, because I think they are full 
of encouragement and full of instruction. It has taken New York 
City, with all its wealth, more than a century to reach this result ; 
and, if you in the South ever feel inclined to lose heart, please think 
how slowly, how very, very slowly, we have had to make progress 
in the City of New York; but, on the other hand, if you think of 
that, remember, also, please, that our progress has been as certain as 
the rising tide. The spirit of democracy there, as soon as it laid its 
eyes upon the ideal, never faltered, and it will not falter here. You 
may have your disappointments. You may be tempted to lose heart 
because you seem to progress so little, in the face of so great a 
problem as lies upon you ; but be of good courage, the democratic 
spirit in you will not let you be defeated, and neither will it let you 
rest until you have realized your ideal. 

Sometimes the public has received great aid from private initiation. 
For a long time the city could not be persuaded to adopt the kinder- 
garten ; so the New York Kindergarten Society was established for 
the purpose of showing the city what a kindergarten was. In less 
than ten years the city itself had 500 kindergartens as a part of its 
public school system. 

Now, we of New York are very apt to think that the burden laid 
upon us is exceptionally heavy, because we stand at the gateway of 



Seth Low 93 

the nation, and receive, at first hand, the bulk of the foreign immigra- 
tion. How many of you reaHze that the present center of emigra- 
tion is within loo miles of Constantinople? It is not the northern 
races like ours that are coming now, in large numbers ; it is the 
southern races — Italians, Slavs, Russians, Bohemians, Jews, and 
people that seem strange to our civilization ; and they come in hordes 
that sometimes make us wonder what is to happen. We sometimes 
wonder if even the City of New York can carry such a burden ; but 
I personally glory in it, because I know that the City of New York 
would perish of fatty degeneration of the heart if it did not have a 
mighty burden for humanity placed upon it. You remember that old 
hero of the classical myth under whose touch everything turned to 
gold, and do you recall that the poor creature died of hunger, because 
all food and drink that he attempted to take turned to gold in his 
throat? That is what will happen to any man, to any state, to any 
nation, whose object in life is to make everything turn into gold. 
Wise men, wise states, wise nations, are those who take gold and 
turn it into life. How are you going to take gold and turn it into 
life? Just as you make life produce life; by throwing it away, if 
need be, by spending it, by giving it away. To any man gold may be 
a blessing; but gold that is not used is the very curse of a nation. 
So I glory in the fact that New York City, rolling in its millions, 
as it sees these poor people coming from Europe, degraded people, 
degraded by their treatment for centuries, has had given to it the 
proud privilege of being the first American community to say, in the 
name and in the spirit of the people of America : "Rise up, stand 
on your feet, and be men." And, if it sometimes seems to you people 
of the South as if a burden greater than you can bear has been laid 
upon you, in the necessity of developing everywhere a double svstem 
of education, may I remind you of that pathetic and philosophic 
utterance of Victor Hugo, when he said : "God suffers not the 
precious fruits of sorrow to grow upon a branch too weak to bear 
them." You have this great burden because you are a mighty people. 
You are mighty in yourselves : mightier still as a part of the Ameri- 
can nation ; and it is because you are what you are that you are 
called upon to meet this mighty task, fit only for men of heroic mould. 
Every one of us who heard this morning the reports of the Super- 
intendents of Instruction of the several Southern States will go 
home treading the earth as though we were an inch or two higher 

7— c. E. 



94 Conference for Education in the South 

than when we came into this community, because we know how you 
are facing your problems. Let us all strive to face our problems, 
North and South alike, not in the spirit of cowards, that turn from 
them because they are hard; but in the spirit of men, who stand up 
and say, in the face of their Maker, "We are here : command us." 

The Chairman : I deem it a great privilege to translate the facial 
expressions and other manifestations of pleasure by the audience 
into a vote of thanks for all the speakers, the lady and the gentlemen 
who have so entertained, instructed and inspired us here tonight. 

The Conference stands adjourned till tomiorrow at 10:30 a. m. 



THIRD DAY, FRIDAY, APRIL 28 



Morning Session at the Columbia Theater. 

The Conference was called to order at ii o'clock. 

The Chairman : Announcements this morning are exceedingly 
important. Your attention is called to the invitation of the Citizens' 
Committee to the strangers within the gates of Columbia to enjoy 
a car ride around the city. The cars will be at the transfer station, 
directly opposite this theater, at 4 o'clock this afternoon, and such 
of the visitors -as make the trip will be left, if they so desire, at the 
Presbyterian College in time for the reception, which is to be from 
5 :30 to 7. 

I am requested to suggest to the citizens of Columbia that they 
have been adopted as a body, by a spiritual consensus of opinion, 
as members of the Conference, and the local committee desires that 
every citizen present should register, that their names may pass into 
the accumulating list of those who have assembled on such occasions 
from year to year. 

The regular business of the hour is to receive the reports of com- 
mittees ; and first, we will hear from the Committee on Resolutions, 
Dr. S. C. Mitchell, Chairman. 

Dr. Mitchell. 

When your committee came together, being under the spell of the 
spirit of gracious hospitality in this city, they found it practically 
impossible to formulate anything that they thought adequate to ex- 
press their appreciation of the kindness and courtesy they have met 
on every hand ; and some one suggested that nothing could be more 
happy than the formulation of this sentiment by one of the foremost 
poets of the country, Mr. Richard Watson Gilder, and one of the 
committee suggested that I read that as an expression of our feeling, 
with such modifications as were called for. I now wish to make this 
acknowledgment for the members of this Conference for Education : 

"We, the members of the Eighth Conference for Education in the 
South, coming from many sections and various States, desire to 



96 Conference for Education in the South 

express our keen appreciation of the generous and gracious hos- 
pitality of the people, including especially the officers and members 
of the local committee, the Governor, Lieutenant-Governor, and 
other members of the State Government, of the organizations which 
joined in the invitation, the press of Columbia, and the associations 
and individuals who have so kindly opened their doors to the dele- 
gates and guests. 

"We have derived pleasure and inspiration not only from the 
interchange of information and opinion, on the immediate subjects 
of the Conference, but also from the spirit of good will, of enterprise 
and of patriotism which characterizes this city of so great memories 
and heroic traditions, 

"S. J. Bowie, 
"S. A. Mynders, 
"S. C. Mitchell/^ 

The Chairman : The action will be upon the acceptance of the 
report of the Committee on Resolutions. 

A motion to accept the report was carried ; and then, upon a fur- 
ther motion, the resolutions were unanimously adopted. 

The Chairman : The next business in order will be the report 
of the Committee on Nominations, Dr. E. A. Alderman, Chairman. 

Dr. Alderman. 

I am instructed by my colleagues of the Committee on Nomina- 
tions to make the following report to this Conference : 

The committee nominates for President of this Conference, Mr. 
Robert Curtis Ogden, of New York City. I am further commis- 
sioned by my colleagues of that committee to say to this Conference 
that it was the universal and profound feeling of the committee that 
through the faultless conduct, the profound unselfishness, the un- 
wearying energy and devotion to the great idea, Mr. Ogden has 
made this Conference an amazing instrument of usefulness and 
power in the life of this nation. 

In a sense I think I have the chair now. I am asked by the com- 
mittee if there be any other nominations for this office. I hear no 
other nominations. Those who favor this nomination will signify 
the same by rising to their feet. [The audience rose en masse.] 



Robert C. Ogden 97 

Those of the contrary opinion Vv^ill also rise. [Nobody rises.] I 
have the great honor and pleasure of declaring the reelection of Mr. 
Robert Curtis Ogden as President of this Conference. 

Mr. Ogden. 

Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen, Members of the Conference: 
I feel that it is only due to my own self-respect, without affectation 
or cant, that I explain in a very few words an apparent contradic- 
tion. Some who are near to me, 'a circle of people who represent the 
active work for which this Conference and the associated boards 
stand, have been aware for some time that I have said with em- 
phasis that it would be impossible for me to continue in the office of 
the President of the Conference for Education if it should be the 
desire of the members of the Conference that such should be. I was 
very sincere and very emphatic in the announcement of this decision. 
I dislike extremely to make a personal reference, but I must say 
that that decision as it stood until within twenty-four hours was 
based upon personal grounds entirely. It was not because of a 
loss of interest in the great cause for which this organization stands • 
not on account of the lack of appreciation of the progress that has 
been made (and I believe with full understanding great good, under 
the guidance of Divine Providence, has been accomplished) ; not 
that there is any lessening desire to serve as I might have opportunity 
to serve, but simply because, not merely business obligations, but 
certain obligations of a personal character, and very intimate in their 
nature seemed to demand such resources in time and strength as I 
had at command. I want to say here, now that we are in the light 
of personal confidence, that this whole work is a very sokmn work 
,to me. When I have the great privilege and honor to sit as the pre- 
siding officer of the education boards, and when particularly in the 
deliberative conferences of the Southern Education Board, at the 
home of George Foster Peabody, at Lake George, each summer, 
associated with the statesmanlike and philosophic men of the board, 
men who can think as well as act, men who have a full concep- 
tion of the interests of this dear land of ours and the things yet to 
be done for its people ; I say that when I sit at the head of that 
board and hear the utterances of those men, it becomes a very deep 
regret with me that only the four walls of the room witness the 



98 Conference for Education in the South 

confidences ; that the great things that are said do not find their way 
to the world at large. Thus it comes about that the position becomes 
to me one of great solemnity ; one that would appeal to the very best 
in any American. 

So out of this has come the judgment of these men, whose judg- 
ment I respect perhaps as I respect the judgment of no other group 
of men in the world, that this cause, with its great constituency 
founded in spiritual democracy, over and above all other organiza- 
tions, has a bearing upon our national wellbeing. By accident of cir- 
cumstances certain men have come into certain places of power in 
this, and through this common guidance it seems to my associates 
that I chance to have a certain place as my personal position, and 
that for the present it is necessary that I continue to serve. 

I dislike very much the need for this personal explanation, but I 
do think that it is due myself to make it in order that I may not be 
considered as a thoughtless man, making decisions only to change 
them and not knowing my own mind. I did know my own mind 
when I stated that this could not go on, and I know it now, but I 
have been overruled by what seems to be the larger consideration, 
and I will continue in the office to which I have been elected, deeply 
appreciating your confidence and serving as I may have a chance to 
do in the future. 

President Ogden : I am afraid I shall have to call the Confer- 
ence to order. I will ask Dr. Alderman to proceed with the com- 
pletion of the report of the Committee on Nominations : 

Dr. Alderman : The Committee instructs me to report further 
for Vice-President of this Conference, Hon. Charles B. Aycock, of 
North Catolina; Secretary, D. J. Baldwin, of Alabama; Treasurer, 
W. A. Blair, of North Carolina ; for the Executive Committee, S. C.- 
Mitchell, of Virginia; H. L. Whitfield, of Mississippi; Sidney J. 
Bowie, of Alabama; R. B. Cousins, of Texas; J. M. Pound, of 
Florida; Clarence H. Bowie, of North Carolina; D. B. Johnson, of 
South Carolina ; C. B. Gibson, of Georgia ; R. H. Jesse, of Missouri ; 
B. A. Shanks, of Kentucky; S. A. Mynders, of Tennessee; J. H. 
Hinemon, of Arkansas. 

The Chairman : Are there any other nominations for these 
offices? There does not appear to be any. You are not bound in 
this Conference by constitutional limitations upon the methods of 



/. D. Murphy 99 

elections, therefore, following the precedent of previous years, unless 
there is objection, I ask that the Conference vote viva voce upon the 
whole ticket. 

The nominees were unanimously elected. 

The Chairman : We will now have the report from the Execu- 
tive Committee. And here comes a question of procedure upon 
which I should almost like the advice of some of the constitutional 
lawyers who sit on the platform. Calling for the report of the 
Executive Committee is a little like the case of Abdul, the Sultan 
of Turkey, and we ask whether it is the committee as is or the com- 
mittee as was. The newly-elected committee is the committee of 
organization, but the committee elected last year is the committee 
before us now, and I would, therefore, ask that Dr. D. B. Johnson, 
a member of both committees, speak for the committee of last year. 
Perhaps in his appearance in that capacity he will give us a word of 
prophecy as to the future. 

Dr. Johnson. 

Mr. President and Gentlemen: 

The Executive Committee has no report to make. Everything 
has been running so smoothly that there has been nothing for this 
Executive Committee to do. Nothing has come before us, but we 
are ready for any proposition or ready for something to do, and 
will be glad to have a proposition for the place of meeting of this 
Conference for next year. We would be glad to consider any such 
proposition. 

The Chairman : .The opportunity is now offered for the suitors 
for the hand of the Conference to make their respective proposals, 
in the absolute privacy of this publicity. The Conference is now- 
ready for proposals. I have an intimation from several sources that 
Asheville has a communication to make through some of its citizens. 

Hon. J. D. Murphy. 

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: 

I am here to bear a message from citizens of Asheville and the 
people of North Carolina to this Conference. 



lOO Conference for Education in the South 

In the first place, to commend the spirit which animates and per- 
vades this Conference — the altruism, the patriotism, the broad and 
catholic sympathy, the lofty purposes, which inspire this body of 
men, of commanding force morally and intellectually. 

In the second place, to express the profound appreciation and 
heartfelt gratitude of the people of North Carolina for the self- 
sacrificing endeavors of the men of the North who have contributed 
of their substance, of their intellectual resources, of their sweet and 
ennobling spirit of helpfulness and self-sacrifice. 

Western North Carolina, from which I come, has been the bene- 
ficiary of the beneficence and munificence of the people of the North. 

The Board of Home Missions of the Presbyterian Church [North] , 
of which Board the distinguished President of this Conference is an 
honored member, has, through educational and religious efforts 
brought light and life into the hearts and homes of many of our 
people. 

Near Asheville, there is a princely palace situated in the midst of 
a lordly estate, the home of Mr. George W. Vanderbilt. All that 
artistic skill and unlimited wealth can do to transform a fair domain 
into a landscape, transcendentally beautiful, has been done. There 
wealth has been transformed into beauty. 

In sight of Mr. Vanderbilt's estate there are three schools estab- 
lished by the Northern Presbyterian Church — the Farm School, for 
boys ; the Home Industrial, and the Normal and Collegiate Institute, 
for young women. In these schools money is being transmuted into 
mind. 

Mr. Vanderbilt, with his immense wealth, has cultivated and beau- 
tified lands. The Home Mission Committee of the Presbyterian 
Church, of which Mr. Ogden is a member, has cultivated mind and 
soul and spirit. 

We, of Western North Carolina, therefore, have seen a splendid 
exhibit of what a wise philanthropy can do for a struggling people. 
It is, however, in no commercial spirit, in nO' spirit of mendicancy, 
that we invite this Conference to hold its next meeting in Asheville. 
We invite you to meet in that fairest region of the South because 
of the encouraging, stimulating, helpful, and uplifting influence of 
such a meeting composed of men of work and worth such as you are. 

Those mountain people are rich in native endowment, rich in 
worldly wisdom and mother wit. 



/. D. Murphy loi 

Senator Vance, of North Carolina, in his lecture on the "Scat- 
tered Nation," said those Western North Carolina people were 
smarter than the sons of Abraham. He said that there were hun- 
dreds of men in Western North Carolina who could trade any Jew 
out of his seat in Abraham's bosom and get "boot" besides. There 
are many folks in. Western North Carolina who could teach Jacob 
"tricks," although he defrauded his brother out of his birthright, 
then went to Paden-Aram and stole everything that was stealable 
and married everything that was marriageable. 

Mr. President, in behalf of the municipal government of the city 
of Asheville, in behalf of the Board of Trade of that city, yea, in 
behalf of all the people of North Carolina, I extend to you a most 
cordial invitation to hold your next meeting within our borders. 

I sincerely trust, Mr. President, that the Executive Committee 
will favorably consider our invitation, yea, our petition. Come, Mr, 
President, and we will show you the finest farm in the South, the 
property of that horny-handed son of toil, Mr. George W. Vander- 
bilt. We will show you a city prettier than any in this country, 
except that one from which each one of you respectively comes. 

Asheville is located in the center of the universe, because the sky 
touches the earth equidistant all around it. 

The Chairman : The chair is a little embarrassed. This allusion 
to Jacob reminds me that when he was reciting the blessings he had 
received from Divine Providence, he said : "With m^y sfaff I 
passed over this brook (the name I have forgotten), and now 
I have become two bands." It strikes home to me very closely that 
I am affected in a personal way this morning, and I want to know 
what this means, for I am a member of the Board of Home Missions 
of the Presbyterian Church, and have to do with some of these 
schools, and I am chairman of the Southern Education Board, and 
I think upon the line of the Old Testament dictum that has been 
laid down, I am entitled to an explanation as to what is meant by 
Asheville. The request from the city of Asheville, together with the 
correspondence in my hands, will be referred to the Executive Com- 
mittee for consideration. 

A gentleman from Texas said something very serious to me yester- 
day about desiring to present something here. 



I02 Conference for Education in the South 

SuPT. R. B. Cousins. 

Mr. President: I desire simply to say that the educational interests 
of Texas would feel greatly honored as well as inspired to greater 
things if we could have this great gathering within our borders. 
We all are proud of some things that we have achieved, and we are 
inspired and awed when we contemplate possibilities of the future. 
I find that the people of these different organizations here expect 
us, when we speak of Texas, to become boastful of our magnificence, 
especially when we speak of our territorial limits and broad industrial 
possibilities and rich educational inheritance. We have a matchless 
history which has been made possible by the contributions of the 
blood and the brain from all over this great country. This historic 
city and this historic State in which we now find ourselves so de- 
lightfully entertained, has contributed to the greatness of our State, 
and I am glad to say that the gentleman who noAV presides with 
dignity and with distinguished ability over the destinies of Texas, 
as our chief executive, is a native of this historic State. 

From Maine to the gulf, and to the western mountains you have 
sent into our State splendid men and splendid women. Texas recog- 
nizes the debt of gratitude to all the good and the great of this great 
nation of ours. To be sure you have divided with us this class of 
your men and women and you may find in Texas some of your 
friends from another class. I find that some of the inmates of the 
penal institutions of the great Texas have come from your States. 

But, Mr. President, we have our problems ; we are struggling to 
prevail. We believe that the gathering of this body in our midst 
would be a great help to us. I desire the good people of this body 
and this great State and this great section of the United States run- 
ning the entire limits of the Atlantic seaboard, and elsewhere, not to 
forget that Texas is a part of the United States. I find that in the 
statistics, the reports and in all the factors which enter the discus- 
sions of this body we are referred to only incidentally. So far as I 
can remember now we were mentioned only about once in the mag- 
nificent array of statistics given here last evening — in a very com- 
plimentary way, to be sure; but we are a part of this great gov- 
ernment. We would like to share in all the good and great things 
which you undertake to accomplish. I repeat that while we have 
magnificent stretches of public domain which have been secured and 



R. B. Cousins 103 

dedicated to the education of our people, since we are not entirely 
independent, we do not desire to live without your sympathy and 
without your help. 

I submit this rambling talk, Mr. President, to this body, extending 
the invitation now and hoping to have the privilege later of rein- 
forcing it with the proper requests from the Governor of our State 
and from the different boards which control our commercial interests 
and our school interests, and I ask you to leave this matter open until 
we can make out our case fairly, and we will be glad, we will feel 
o-reatly honored, if you will consider our invitation. If you will come 
out to Texas we will show you what we have done, what we possess, 
and what are our aspirations, our hopes and our fears. In order that 
we may enlist your sympathy we will give you the best we have ; if 
there is anything within our borders that will be of benefit to you, 
the keys will be yours. We will open our homes, we will open our 
hearts. We will invite you to share in our secrets. We will invite 
you to take a fair share in all undertakings, and when the honors 
come we will share them with you. And when we have accomplished 
our own destiny, as we believe there is in the future for us, we will 
work out a still greater destiny for our common country. We will 
share with you the glory of our largest accomplishments and we will 
lay them at the feet of our common country. Come down to see us. 
We may help you. We will do the best we can. I am sure you can 
help us, and we will not lack in appreciation. Come to Austin, to the 
capital of our great State. We want you to know our people. We 
desire that our people shall know the impulses which actuate and 
which impel this organization toward the accomplishment of the 
great things which it has undertaken. I desire to say that we need 
your help. Come to Texas at your next meeting, and if you cannot 
come then — but we hope you will come then — we will renew from 
time to time our petition until you do hear us and give us an oppor- 
tunity to share the blessings which you are scattering over this 
beloved land of ours. 

The Chairman : This invitation comes to us from the State 
Superintendent of Education for Texas. The gracious invitation 
will be referred to our Executive Committee. There will be no haste 
in its decision ; ample opportunity will be given for its consideration. 
Are there any other suggestions of like agreeable nature? 



I04 Conference for Education in the South 

Dr. Chas. D. McIver. 

Mr. President: I am somewhat embarrassed. I did not know 
mitil I reached Columbia that Asheville would be an applicant for the 
next meeting of this Conference. I am here by the direction of the 
Chamber of Commerce and the civil authorities of Greensboro, N. C, 
to invite this Conference to hold its next meeting in that city. This 
invitation has the endorsement of the Governor of North Carolina 
and the State Department of Education. 

We have not forgotten the first large session of this Conference 
held at Winston-Salem, N. C, when a large number of its members 
spent half a day in Greensboro. It is because of our pleasant mem- 
ories of that visit that we should like to have you come again. I 
feel like the little boy who had a present of a beautiful rocking-chair 
from his aunt. He was so delighted that he sat down in the chair 
and rocked back and forth in happy silence. His mother said to him, 
"Don't you think that you ought to thank Aunt Jane for that chair?" 
He said "Yes," and turning to his aunt said, "Aunt Jane, the chair is 
mighty pretty. I wish you would give me another." 

Greensboro does not wish, however, to be selfish in this matter. 
North Carolinians will welcome this Conference at any point in the 
State, and if it should appear to the authorities of the Conference 
that it is wiser to hold the meeting in Asheville than in Greensboro 
I am advised by the Governor and State Superintendent Joyner that 
they would like to give their endorsement to the invitation just ex- 
tended to you by our friends from Asheville. Knowing as it does 
that this Conference represents so largely the thoughtful and in- 
fluential forces in education throughout the country. North and 
South, North Carolina will be glad to have you meet within her 
borders at any time when it may suit the convenience and plans of 
the Conference. 

We do not desire to take the Conference from other States that 
have not enjoyed one of its sessions, but the sooner the Conference 
finds it convenient to hold another session in North Carolina the 
more gratifying it will be to us. 

Mr. Burris A. Jenkins, President of Kentucky University, of Lex- 
ington, Ky., was introduced and spoke as follows : 



Burris A. Jenkins 105 

President Burris A. Jenkins. 

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: 

I am somewhat in the position of the two Irishmen who came 
down on the train with us tlie other night. They had never ridden 
in a Pullman car before, and after much talk they finally got to bed, 
or rather Mike did, and there was a great scrambling in the berth 
next to me, which belonged to Pat. Finally Mike said to Pat, "How 
are you getting on ?" and Pat replied, "I am getting on pretty well, 
but oi'm havin' a divil of a time gittin' into this hammock." 

This being my first Conference for Education in the South, I am 
not sure that I will say just the right thing, and not being sure of 
that I went around last night to Mr. Superintendent Hand before his 
address and gave him those figures about Kentucky which he was 
kind enough to insert in his address. These figures show the con- 
dition of affairs in our State, and the need which we have for this 
Conference, and you can get them in the morning's paper. I will 
call your attention simply to the number of native white illiterates 
over ten years of age in which we yield precedence only to North 
Carolina. I will call your attention to the second table of native 
white illiterate voters in which we yield precedence to none, 62,000 
over against North Carolina's slow second of 54,000. Now, then, 
there are three reasons why we Vv^ant this Conference at Lexington, 
Kentucky : first, because we need it ; second, because you could 
easily reach it ; and third, because we could take care of you. In 
the first place, we need it because we are losing ground apparently 
in Kentucky in the matter of education. Dean Shaler, in his history 
of the State, declared some twenty-three years since that unless Ken- 
tucky made provision for education she would lose her place of 
leadership in the halls of the national Congress and in national 
affairs. In less than a generation that prophecy has been fulfilled, 
and I do not speak my own words when I say that it is difficult to 
find the public men within our State to take the places of the Clays, 
the Breckenridges, the Carlisles, and the Lindsays, who are gone 
to their last long sleep, or gone to New York. 

We need it, in the second place, because we are conservative and 
provincial. My friends, Kentucky is not the only provincial com- 
munity. I learn that Boston is no longer a locality, but a state of 
mind. There are conservative and provincial States. I was being 



io6 Conference for Education in the South 

entertained some time since at the home of a bluegrass farmer when 
I noticed in a great forest, which he called his front yard, a beautiful 
specimen of an Indian mound, and at dinner I said to him : "Have 
you ever opened that mound? I think you would find some things 
very interesting inside of it." "Well," he said, "my father didn't 
open it, and his father didn't open it, and my great-grandfather didn't 
open it, and I ain't goin' to open it." That is the attitude of Ken- 
tucky on most things, except on bottles of Bourbon. 

Now, we need this Conference to come there and open our lives to 
the possibilities of education in the State. And yet there is a good 
thing about that conservatism, let me remind you. When Kentucky 
does take a step forward it is to stay, and if this Conference comes 
to us next year there will be a long step made forward and no 
retrogression made afterward, I am sure. 

Then again, we have the feuds of Breathitt County and of the 
mountains, and we need enlightenment to lift us out of that code of 
morals which belongs to the old Scotch Highlanders — an eye for an 
eye and a tooth for a tooth. 

All Kentucky is like Tennessee, and "all Gaul is divided into three 
parts," the Mountains, the Bluegrass, and the Pennyr'y'l. Now, we 
do not invite you to one of these parts, as one of the gentlemen from 
a certain State did here this morning, but we invite you to the whole 
State. It is the mountains and the Pennyr'y'l which most need your 
attention ; therefore we will put you right off between them in that 
little spot of fifty miles in circumference whose influence reaches out 
all over the State. I was reading an old manuscript with a new 
version of the Garden of Eden story. It was written in Syriac, which 
I read for recreation sometimes, and the account read somewhat as 
follows : When Adam and Eve were turned out of the Garden of 
Eden they asked permission of the Lord to let them go and live in 
the Bluegrass region of Kentucky, but the Lord said, "No, that 
would be the same as living in Eden" ; they continued to press Him 
and He allowed them to go and live in Lexington, Ky. ; but the 
serpent took up his abode in Breathitt County, and it has been there 
unto this day." 

We need high schools. Except the larger towns of the State, such 
as Covington, Louisville, Lexington, and a few others, there are 
no high schools throughout the length and breadth of our great 
State, so that our colleges are compelled to maintain preparatory 



Burris A. Jenkins 107 

schools, when we would rather not do so, because these raw fellows 
come to us from the back counties with no preparation and we must 
prepare them for college work. One fellow came last fall who tried 
to get into the State college. He failed. Then he came to us and 
said: "I want to go in your school." I said, "What do you know? 
What have you studied?" He said, "I have not studied much of any- 
thing," "Where have you been to school ?" "I have been to school 
three or four months up in the mountains." "What have you 
learned?" "I don't know; nothin' hardly." I said, "The place for 
you is over here in the city schools." We sent him over to the public 
school next door to the University. But these students come to us 
with a pathetic thirst for knowledge, and many of them will not 
come down out of the mountains into the Bluegrass ; we must send 
them a message of education and prepare adequate schools for them. 

We have no normal colleges in the State of Kentucky, not one, ex- 
cept for the colored race. We have provided for them better than 
we have provided for ourselves. We are making an earnest cam- 
paign right now for the establishment of two normal schools at least 
within the borders of our State, and trust that this Conference will 
aid us in this campaign for education. Our State institutions are 
not adequately supported, and if you would go into one of the County 
Teachers' Conferences or Institutes during the summer and stay 
there through the long afternoons as the flies buzz and the teachers 
drone you would see the necessity for the better training of the 
teachers of our State. 

Just two more points : You can easily reach Lexington from any 
part of the country. Your special train may start from Jersey City 
and without changing go straight into the station at Lexington. You 
can't go from Atlanta to Minneapolis without passing Lexington. 
You can't go from New Orleans to Chicago without passing through 
Lexington. In going from Louisville to New York it is difficult to 
avoid Lexington ; and you can go to Lexington from Texas as well 
as you can go anywhere else from Texas. 

And then we can take care of you. We have an opera house which 
will seat the convention. We have that famous Phoenix Hotel. We 
have five colleges within a radius of thirty miles from town which 
can organize and carry forward the movement. We have present 
here today the largest delegation of any State from a distance. I 
will ask all the Kentucky men to stand and let you see who they are. 



io8 Conference for Ediication in the South 

[Six men rose from their seats on the platfrom and were greeted 
with applause.] 

Some of the Presidents of these institutions are here today, and 
we extend to you, and can easily furnish the documents, an invita- 
tion from the Governor, from the Chamber of Commerce, from the 
Board of Aldermen, from the Presidents of these institutions, and 
if it were not for the fact that our House of Representatives meets 
only once in a while, we could bring you an invitation from them 
as well. Most cordially, most heartily, would we welcome you, sir, 
and you, gentlemen, and all the members of this Conference, should 
you come to the Bluegrass of Kentucky. 

The Chairman : New Yorkers will not forget that the address 
of James Lane Allen is at Buren, 399, and the Executive Committee 
will certainly listen to the "Kentucky Cardinal" and to the "Choir 
Invisible" as they consider this eloquent invitation from Lexington, 
Kentucky. 

Are there any other persuasive addresses in reserve here? If not 
we come to the regular program of instruction for the morning. 
It gives me very great pleasure to introduce the next speaker, who, 
as State Superintendent of Education of Alabama, and later as 
President of the University of Alabama, has given his sympathy, his 
counsel and his voice in public repeatedly, in behalf of the interests 
of this Conference. I have the honor to present Dr. John W. Aber- 
crombie, who will speak on the subject of 

SCHOOL SUPERVISION. 
Dr. Abercrombie. 
Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: 

The question of school supervision has been assigned to me. It 
is a subject which bears directly or indirectly upon every phase of 
educational development. About it volumes have been written. To 
its study many men and women have devoted their lives. I am 
asked to discuss it within a period of fifteen or twenty minutes. The 
limitation imposed reminds me of the charge of the mother who, 
in giving permission to her daughter to learn to swim, said : 



/. W. Abercrombie 109 

"Yes, my darling daughter ; 

Hang your clothes on a hickory limb, 
And don't go near the water." 

Indeed, ladies and gentlemen, anything like a thorough or even 
systematic discussion of the subject of school supervision would 
require much speaking. The time alloted for the whole of the pro- 
gram of today would not be sufficient. Therefore I shall enter upon 
the performance of no such task. I shall rather content myself with 
some hasty and disconnected remarks upon certain phases of the 
subject. 

SPECIAL TRAINING NECESSARY. 

In some unaccountable way, we have, till recently, underestimated 
the importance of special training for the work of supervision. Even 
now in some States, inexperienced, and otherwise untrained men are 
considered competent to render efficient supervisory service. This 
is true especially with reference to county supervision. 

The necessity for special preparation, for direction and leadership 
in other fields of labor, has long been recognized. If a plantation is 
to be overseen, if a suit at law is to be prosecuted or defended, if a 
factory is to be established and managed, if a railroad is to be built 
and conducted, if any work not educational is to be supervised, we 
employ for that service some person specially trained at school or 
by experience. Then, when a system of schools is to be administered, 
why not assign the duty to a specialist in that field of action? Is it 
possible that people care less for the right direction of the educa- 
tion of their children than they care for the proper management of 
things material? The interest taken in educational affairs in some 
communities would seem to indicate as much. While this condition 
exists in some portions of every section of the country, it is found 
in the acutest form in certain parts of our own section. The time 
has been when there was good excuse for such condition, but that 
time no longer exists. 

DIVISION OF THE WORK. 

In the South, as in other sections of the United States, the work 
of school administration has been divided by law into three distinct 
but closely related departments, namely, State supervision, county 

8—0. E. 



no Conference for Education in the South 

supervision, and district supervision. To this classification may be 
added such supervision as is done by the teacher in the one-teacher 
school. What is true as to the fitness of men for efficient service in 
one of these departments is true to a great extent as to all. The best 
district supervision is based upon experience gotten from actual 
teaching. Experience as teacher and as district supervisor is an 
important qualification for the most successful county supervision. 
An experimental knowledge of one-school, district and county super- 
vision is the best guarantee of fitness for State supervision. In other 
words, the person who is called to a superintendency should be thor- 
oughly acquainted with every phase of the work beneath him. Only 
the professional educator can meet these requirements. 

STATE SUPERVISION. 

The time once was, and it is not far distant, when the people cared 
little about the fitness of candidates for the high office of State 
Superintendent of Education. So far as the lawmaking power is 
concerned, this seems yet to be true in some of the States, as in 
them any elector is eligible to election or appointment to that im- 
portant position. Be it said to the credit of the people, that, not- 
withstanding this defect in the law, the practice is established in 
nearly every State of choosing for this office only professional 
educators. This custom seems to be firmly established in the State 
which I have the honor to represent. So, as a rule, we have com- 
petent State supervision. Competent State supervision would be 
guaranteed everywhere if in every State the Superintendent of Edu- 
cation were required by law to be a professional educator of ex- 
perience, of recognized ability, and of high character. 

COUNTY SUPERVISION. 

What has been said of State supervision is equally true of county 
supervision. Indeed, county supervision is the more important, 
because it is more closely related to the work of the individual teacher 
and the individual school. There are those who claim that at this 
stage of developmefit, the office of county superintendent is the most 
important in the entire system. Since as a rule, the county superin- 
tendent has to do directly with the development of the rural school — 
that branch of the system which is in greatest need of strengthening 
— this claim seems to be based upon sound reasoning. 



/. IV. Abercrombie iii 

Many county superintendents are well qualified for a satisfactory 
performance of their duties ; many are not so qualified. This state 
of affairs is attributable largely to the fact that, in some States, the 
office is regarded as a political one. This is a hurtful policy. Under 
the excitement attendant upon partisan contests, the matter of quali- 
fication is frequently overlooked altogether. The result is inefficient 
supervision. The ofiice of superintendent should be removed as far 
as possible from the influences of what is called practical politics. 

So long as it is possible under the law for unqualified men to 
secure election to this office — men who are not experienced in school 
management, who know nothing of the history of education, who 
have not made a study of the theory and practice of teaching, who 
could not even pass a creditable examination for the lowest grade of 
teachers' certificate — just so long will we have here and there in- 
competent supervision. So long, too, as we follow for political 
reasons the practice of forcing out of office at the end of one or two 
terms competent superintendents, just so long will the cause of 
education be retarded. A qualified county superintendency is one 
of the greatest of our educational needs. Local taxation, better 
buildings, consolidation of schools, proper classification, good teach- 
ing, all, all depend upon it. 

Yet, when the meagre salaries paid are taken into consideration, 
those who supervise are not entirely blamable for making so little 
preparation for their work, or for devoting so little time to a per- 
formance of official duties. In many counties superintendents receive 
mere pittances as compensation. They should not only be well qual- 
ified for the work, but should also be paid salaries sufficiently large 
to enable them to devote the entire time to it. In the smallest counties 
even, superintendents should receive compensation sufficiently great 
to enable them to live comfortably, to accumulate a reasonable com- 
petency, and to spend an adequate portion of time in making better 
preparation for service. 

DISTRICT SUPERVISION. 

District supervision is of prime importance, for it is there that 
the superintendent comes into direct touch Avith pupils, with parents, 
with trustees, and with all of the other forces that go to make or 
unmake the school. Upon him rests the arrangement and admin- 
istration of the courses of study, the recommendation of teachers, 



112 Conference for Education in the South 

the classification of pupils, and the enforcement of discipline. A 
narrow man, a weak man, an inexperienced man, cannot meet the 
demands of such a position. 

NECESSARY QUALIFICATIONS. 

What, then, are the chief qualifications necessary on the part of 
superintendents. State, county and district, in order that satisfactory 
results may be guaranteed ? Briefly stated, I should say : 

I. Scholarship. That scholarship is essential to the wisest direc- 
tion of educational affairs seems to- be self-evident. It is conceded 
that the blind cannot lead the blind. 

'2. Teaching experience. Only a man who has done successful 
teaching is qualified to judge wisely of organization, of classification, 
of grading and of methods of instruction. 

3. Enthusiasm. The superintendent should be deeply in love with 
his work. Enthusiasm is necessary in every calling that has in it 
the elements of service, public service, service to fellowman. 

4. Tact. Unless the superintendent possesses what is commonly 
called tact, "the ready power of appreciating and doing what is 
required by circumstances," he will fail to secure the necessary co- 
operation from trustees, teachers, pupils, patrons and people. 

5. Leadership. Elements of leadership are absolutely necessary. 
One of the superintendent's most important duties is to point the way 
to new and better conditions. 

6. Patriotism. An earnest, consuming, abiding love of home and 
country is an essential qualification. The superintendent should be 
a true patriot. 

7. Character. If the superintendent be not a man of exemplary 
habits, of high thinking, of noble living, of exalted character, he will 
be powerless to perform rightly the functions of his high office. A 
characterless man is incapacitated for such service. 

PECULIAR PROBLEMS. 

The necessity, the absolute and immovable necessity, for maintain- 
ing a dual system of schools in each of the Southern States, com- 
plicates the question of supervision. The superintendent in the 
South has to meet and solve problems of administration that never 
confront the superintendent in any other section. He must know 



/. W. Ahercromhie 113 

not only the needs of the white man, but also the needs of the black 
man. To have such knowledge, he must be familiar with the char- 
acteristics of both races, their habits, customs, tendencies, etc. In 
other words, we have problems of school supervision that are 
peculiar to the South. For this reason, other things being equal, 
the Southern-reared man or woman is best fitted for supervisory 
positions. Of course, there have been and will be notable exceptions 
to this general rule. 

THE CONFERENCE AND BETTER SUPERVISION. 

This Conference exists for the study of educational conditions and 
for the better organization of the friends of education in the South. 
We want to prepare not only for more efficient supervision, but also 
for more effective effort in the general crusade which is being waged 
against ignorance, that ignorance which stands as a barrier to 
progress of every description. To such a purpose, no intelligent, 
observant, patriotic person can find reasonable objection; on the 
contrary, to it every such person should lend his hearty endorsement 
and active cooperation. 

If there is one matter which is of preeminent importance to all the 
people of this country — North, South, East, and West — that matter 
is the establishment and maintenance in each of the States of an 
adequate school system — a system which will carry every child, 
rich and poor, black and white, city and country, farm and factory, 
such training of head and hand and heart as will fit for intelligent 
and patriotic citizenship, and as will qualify for successful action in 
the domain of everyday life. That we still have among us people, 
some of great intelligence and wide influence, some of exalted posi- 
tion and extended popularity, who oppose universal education at 
public expense, cannot be denied; but let us rejoice that the number 
of such people is growing smaller, rapidly smaller. The labor has 
been long and arduous, sometimes discouraging, but the prospect is 
brightening, the opposition is scattering before the onward march 
of Anglo-Saxon civilization. 

CONCLUSION. 

Let us encourage this movement. In it is the promise of a brighter 
day. This Conference is composed of representative men and women 



114 Conference for Education in the South 

from the South and representative men and women from the North. 
They come together as fellow-citizens, imbued with the true Ameri- 
can spirit, moved by that patriotism which knows no North, no 
South, no East, no West, save it be for the common good. 

Fellow Southerners, let us join hands with our friends, from 
whatever State or section, in an effort to improve the common coun- 
try. Let us lead our own people to a full realization of the fact that 
illiteracy does not conduce to good citizenship, that it does not con- 
tribute to the prosperity of a people. Let us proclaim from stump 
and stage, from pulpit and printing press, the indisputable fact that 
ignorance and superstition, depravity and criminality, pauperism and 
vice, are inseparable evils. 

The Chairman : We shall now have the privilege of listening 
to an address on "Public Order and Public Schools" by Col. G. A. 
Gordon, of Savannah. The citizens of all parts of this country 
remember with gratitude the ringing address of Colonel Gordon to 
his command, in which he laid down so clearly the obligations of 
law, and so splendidly the duties of the citizen-soldier, so that at one 
stroke this young commander of Savannah became a national figure ; 
and that is an additional reason why we join in welcoming him here 
this morning. 

PUBLIC ORDER AND THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 
Col. G. a. Gordon. 

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: 

Several weeks ago the Executive Secretary of the Southern Edu- 
cational Board sent me an invitation to address the Eighth Confer- 
ence for Education in the South on the subject of "Public Order 
and the Public Schools." He wrote : "We will be obliged to sug- 
gest a time limit of about twenty minutes, but I think that within 
this brief period you will be able to bring us a real message." 

After listening, during the past two days, to the addresses on edu- 
cation by the many distinguished speakers so eminently qualified to 
discuss the subject; addresses replete with original ideas and perti- 
nent suggestions, it has gradually dawned upon me that if a "real 
message" means something more than what has been said, I might 
speak twenty hours without adding anything of value, and twenty 



G. A. Gordon 115 

seconds would suffice to voice any new thought which has not already 
found expression here. Indeed, I am tempted to withdraw grace- 
fully, like the old deacon who, when suddenly called upon at a 
campmeeting to lead in prayer, responded, his mind upon the events 
of the preceding evening: "It is not my lead; I dealt." 

"Public Order and the Public Schools :" Why should these two 
be bracketed in the same subject? Is not the very existence of public 
schools a guarantee that a stage of civilization has been reached 
which insures public order? How can a civilization be defended if 
it does not assure public order? Of what use are the public schools 
unless they educate the children to be law-abiding, law-respecting 
citizens? We all know how we should like to answer these ques- 
tions. If a foreigner were to ask them, could we truthfully say that 
American civilization is today abreast of the rest of the civilized 
world as regards public order? Could we boast of what our public 
schools are doing to improve existing conditions ? I think not. The 
very fact that these two things, public order and the public schools, 
are thus linked together shows that thinking men are dissatisfied 
with the present low standard of public order, not alone in the South, 
but in all parts of this country, and that they look to the public 
school, the cradle of the education of the vast majority of our citi- 
zens, to better the situation. 

The Fourth Conference for Education in the South adopted the 
following resolution : "The overshadowing and supreme public 
need of our time, as we pass the threshold of a new century, is the 
education of the children of all the people." 

In his book entitled "The Present South," Mr. Edgar Gardner 
Murphy writes : 

It is to the school that our democracy must look for the satis- 
factory adjustment of the problems which accompany and affect 
its progress. Schools must be instructors of the contemporary 
■ civic conscience. They must help the State to bring to men a 
profounder, and, therefore, a simpler, reverence for the institu- 
tions and processes of Public Order. 

The relationship between public schools and public order is clearly 
recognized in the foregoing quotations. 

My knowledge of public schools is limited. I presume my posi- 
tion as an officer of the Georgia State Troops suggested my selection 



ii6 Conference for Education in the South 

to discuss such a subject as "Public Order," and if my experience 
as enlisted man and officer has taught me nothing else, it has made 
me realize that, with respect to public order, as with so many other 
things, "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." Senti- 
ments and opinions and prejudices of mature men cannot be changed 
by argument. Passion seldom yields to persuasion, and it is a 
thankless task to oppose friends and neighbors with threats of death 
when they stray from the paths of law and order. Far better train 
them in youth to a different point of view concerning the duties of 
citizenship, and the value of a strict compliance with the law. 

The constant discussion of this subject indicates dissatisfaction 
with the present standard of public order, not only in its narrow 
sense of obedience to the laws on the statute books, the mandates of 
courts and the ordinances of town or city, but in that broader 
acceptance of the term, which includes respect and reverence for 
law, as the rule of public conduct, and the framework of our present 
social structure. 

The topic assigned can best be considered, first, in its application 
to the country taken as a whole; next, in its bearing upon our 
Southern problems. 

In order to seek a remedy, it is necessary to diagnose the disease. 
The most hopeful feature of the situation is that the necessity for 
improvement is recognized. The deplorable lack of public order in 
this country was well set forth in a recent address by Dr. Lyman 
Abbott, who said : 

Now, gentlemen, the first thing I want to say to you tonight is 
that there is nothing that America needs so much as the develop- 
ment of an earnest, loving obedience to law. It does not need 
more wealth ; we are rich enough. It does not need more com- 
mercial prosperity ; we have got it in abundance. It does not 
chiefly need intelligence; we are very smart. What it needs is 
earnest and loving obedience to law, and that we lack. We are a 
lawless people. We go our own way. The history of our past 
life has made us so. Every individual thinks that liberty means 
acting according to his own sweet will. What, more than any- 
thing else, we need in this country is the infusion into the nation, 
black and white, rich and poor, educated and ignorant, of a spirit 
of loving and earnest obedience to the law of man, because that 
is the exponent and expression of the law of God. And the rich 
need it just as much as the poor. And the educated need it 'just 



G. A. Gordon iiy 

as much as the ignorant. In fact, I am rather inclined to think 
that the worst forms of law-breaking are those by the rich and 
educated; not those by the ignorant and poor. 

This is an appalling indictment; yet who can gainsay its truth? 
The centuries-old query recurs : "What shall we do to be saved ?" 
Saved from ourselves ! 

When we plead with men for an attitude of respect towards the 
law, they reply that they want justice, not the kind of law which 
so often fails to bring justice. When we demand that lawlessness 
cease, men cite laws which are violated with impunity every day, 
because the sentiment of the community is against their enforcement. 
When we argue that disregard of unpopular laws leads gradually to 
a contempt for all laws, which, in turn, leads straight to anarchy, 
men reply that they are too busy to consider or give weighs to such 
remote contingencies. The universities, through their professors 
and students, are constantly calling attention to the necessity of 
stamping out lawlessness and civil disorder, but the increment of 
gain in public order is almost imperceptible, because the large 
majority of our citizens have not been educated to respond to such 
appeals. The key-note is struck, but the instrument has been im- 
properly tuned, and there is no answering vibration to a sound 
pitched in so lofty a key. 

President Hadley has ably stated the need of the hour when he 
says : 

The modern world cannot permit moral theories to be monop- 
olized by the highly educated. The world today demands that 
such theories should be of a nature to be preached in the market 
place. To be permanently successful, the general body of citizens 
must fight where they are strongest, using public opinion as their 
weapon. 

The fact is, there is in this country only one force which men 
respect, and which stands today higher than the law, viz : the subtle, 
the mighty, the often erratic, force of public opinion. This force 
must be invoked in behalf of respect for law before any advance can 
be made. This power, so irresistible in every department of life — 
political, commercial, professional — this public opinion is, in its last 
analysis, the collective thought of the average men and women of 
the United States. It might better be termed their habit of thinking. 
But habits of thinking, like habits of industry and other habits, are 



ii8 Conference for Education in the South 

formed during the impressionable age — during childhood and youth. 
What is impressed on the character at school will be £'.^'pressed in 
the life of after years. The average men and women, the normal, 
hard-working, ambitious majority of our people, receive their entire 
education in the public schools. Rightly or wrongly, this country 
has pinned its faith to the public school system, and thus it seems 
evident that there, if anywhere, a sound, wholesome public opinion, 
a correct habit of thinking, must be inculcated in favor of public 
order, and against every violation of law. The importance of de- 
veloping a broad and efficient system of drilling the children in the 
public schools to the habits of discipline and the customs of obedience 
which make for public order, cannot be too strongly emphasized. 
Thus far, this department has been comparatively neglected. The 
progress in the development of purely intellectual teaching has been 
phenomenal. The practical and industrial side of education, with 
manual training as a basis, is being extended every day. But in- 
struction in civic duties has been generally overlooked. Surely this 
state of affairs should not be permitted to continue ! 

The time has come when public schools, in every section of the 
country, in every State of the Union, differing as they may and must, 
according to varying local needs, should accord in this : That a uni- 
form and comprehensive course in the duties of citizenship and the 
ethics of public morals shall have at least a small part in the work 
of each school year. The details of such a plan must be entrusted to 
those familiar with public school conditions, to that devoted, self- 
sacrificing, intelligent band of public school teachers, which is doing 
such splendid service in educating the future men and women of 
the greater republic. I commend the subject to them. To solve the 
problem is worthy of their best efforts. A start has already been 
made in the public schools of Savannah. The Savannah Morning 
Nezvs of April i8th contained the following account: 

All the pupils of the Savannah schools were addressed by the 
teachers yesterday on the subject of taking care of public prop- 
erty, and it is expected that much good will result. 

Last Friday afternoon, Mr. Otis Ashmore, Superintendent of 
the schools, addressed the teachers on this subject, suggesting that 
they instruct their pupils. The children were cautioned not to 
pull the flowers in the public parks, to refrain from injuring the 
grass and shrubbery, defacing walls and to avoid all forms of 
destruction or injury of public property. 



G. A. Gordon 119 

The elements of good citizenship were outlined and the instruc- 
tion given in the lectures should prove of great value. The pupils 
in both white and colored schools were addressed on the subject. 

The following plan may not be practicable, but is perhaps worthy 
of consideration : Give the children a course in Civil Government. 
Fiske's textbook on this subject might serve as a basis. Explain to 
them clearly the machinery of their local government ; the system 
of primaries, as well as the legal election. Make, them understand 
the workings of the city departments ; the duties of officials ; the 
management of police and fire departments, etc. Explain the prin- 
ciples by which the courts and grand and petit juries are supposed 
to be governed. Let the knowledge of the administration of home 
affairs precede the study of State or National systems. Cultivate in 
the children a feeling of responsibility for municipal shortcomings ; 
give them lectures upon such evils. Encourage them to debate upon 
and write compositions about the defects they may themselves ob- 
serve, such as the condition of the streets and roads ; the administra- 
tion of justice, etc. In other words, train them not only to feel 
responsible for public order, but train them, also, to hold public 
officials to a strict accountability for their acts. Instil in them a 
spirit which will exact in public affairs the same standards of 
morality as those which are insisted upon in private affairs. The 
effect of a public opinion of this sort in raising the standard of 
public, order would be of incalculable benefit. It rests with the 
public schools to create such public opinion. 

Turning to the condition of public order in the South, we are 
confronted with a more difficult and more complex problem. The 
South is afflicted with two evils which do not obtain elsewhere, viz : 
the presence in large numbers of idle, and often criminally inclined, 
negroes, and the lack of proper police protection in many rural dis- 
tricts. Our Southern people have not only greater provocation to 
civil disorder, but have less protection from it. On several occasions 
mobs in Northern cities have been quelled by the police. As a con- 
sequence little notice was taken of these disturbances. In the South, 
under similar circumstances, the restraining influence of the police 
would probably have been insufficient, and the excesses of the mob 
would have been condemned in every section of the country. 

We labor under another difficulty in the South : our industrial 
awakening and development is accompanied by a more stirring. 



I20 Conference for Education in the South 

restless, unstable habit of living. The patient, steadfast endurance, 
which enabled the men of the South to bear the horrors of recon- 
struction, and work out gradually their political salvation, is passing 
away. And as our material prosperity increases, as we grow from 
an agricultural into a manufacturing people, we feel the throb of 
what President Roosevelt describes as "the strenuous life." Now, 
to be strenuous involves a strain ; a strain on the nerves ; and this 
produces irritability and lack of poise and self-control ; therefore, we 
of the South not only stand face to face with aggravating problems ; 
we not only lack proper means of controlling our lawless elements 
by force, but the trend of events is calculated actually to unfit us to 
deal with civil disorder as successefully as we have dealt with it in 
the past. In view of these facts, it is doubly necessary that the 
children of the South be trained in the public schools to habits of self- 
repression. They must be taught that mob law, in its ultimate 
effects, is more injurious to the members, than to the victims, of the 
mob. These public school children must be imbued with a spirit 
of passionate devotion to public order and an utter loathing of every 
form of law-breaking. They must learn that the only self-respect 
worth having is that which accompanies respect for the law. If 
this course is followed in our public schools, patience and gentleness 
and a sober sense of responsibility will help the coming generation 
to meet with courage and success the ever-thickening complications 
which retard the progress of our Southern States. 

Corrupt politicians will vigorously oppose the introduction of 
teaching calculated to arouse public opinion. Unfortunately, such 
men are sometimes in a position to influence the manner of con- 
ducting our public schools. It, therefore, becomes a matter of vital 
necessity that children be made to realize that a man should speak 
out in no uncertain terms when matters of principle are involved. 
It is a regrettable fact that public opinion is frequently wrongly and 
selfishly moulded by the publication in the newspapers of the views 
of the most thoughtless and shallow elements of the community, 
while the law-abiding and respectable citizens, from motives of 
modesty or timidity, remain silent. Mr. Edgar Gardner Murphy 
exactly describes the situation when he says : 



G. A. Gordon 121 

We too often find the ignorant assertive, and the educated 
silent ; the ignorant aggressive, and the educated acquiescent ; the 
ignorant recording, with a pathetic but sinister intolerance, the 
degrees of academic or political policy, and the educated exhaust- 
ing their powers only in the familiar exercise of private lamenta- 
tion. 

There is need of a radical change in these matters, and it must 
originate in the teaching of the children. Let them learn that prin- 
ciple is worth fighting for. In these days where all men are judged 
by results, there is a tendency to regard non-success as a disgrace ; 
let us teach the children differently. Let us confirm in them the 
belief that the best results — if results must be the test- — are often 
the distant ones. It has been said that all martyrdoms seemed mean 
when being suffered ; yet no good fight fails, even though the im- 
mediate benefits are not apparent. Where a principle such as public 
order is involved, no prospect of failure will excuse a shirking from 
speaking out and making an effort. 

"The battle is not wholly lost 
Which, bravely fought, ends in defeat. 
Let no one count the paltry cost 
Of effort spent — or seek retreat 
From that position whose defense 
Brings to this hour, no recompense." 

Since, then, the responsibility for our contempt of law can justly 
be laid at the door of an indifferent, or a vicious public opinion, the 
remedy must be found in training the children so that an alert, a 
healthy, a vigorous public opinion will compel a satisfactory dis- 
charge of public duties on the part of all our citizens. And let us so 
emphasize this course of teaching that hereafter the public school 
will be considered the foundation of public order, and public order 
will be correctly viewed as the crowning glory of our great public 
school system. 

The Chairman : The Executive Committee will assemble upon 
the platform after the audience is dismissed. I am requested to em- 
phasize the private invitation to the reception at the College for 
Women this afternoon. All friends of the Conference, as well as 
those who consider themselves actually and technically as members 



122 Conference for Education in the South 

of it, are invited to the reception. And the committee is very anxious 
that the inclusiveness of this invitation should be thoroughly under- 
stood. 

Perhaps there is one word that should be spoken : From the be- 
ginning of these sessions of the Conference, there has been no oppor- 
tunity for free speech or for any discussion from the people. I must 
say that the chair is not responsible for this ; neither, perhaps, is the 
program committee, of which Dr. Butterick and Mr. Edgar Gardner 
Murphy have really been the constituent members ; but the interests 
have been so cumulative and exacting in their character as to leave 
no margin of time for the introduction of any business or the pre- 
sentation of any new topics ; circumstances have controlled in such 
an imperious manner that no other course has been possible. 

The Conference is adjourned until 8 130 p. m. 

EXCURSION BY TROLLEY CARS AND RECEPTION AT 

THE WOMEN'S PRESBYTERIAN COLLEGE 

FRIDAY AFTERNOON. 

Among the various thoughtful arrangements of the Columbia 
people for the entertainment of those attending the Conference was 
an excursion of some fifteen miles over the trolley lines about the 
city. On Friday afternoon at 4 o'clock, the cars were ready before 
the theater, where they were soon occupied, and proceeded on their 
way. Well-informed guides accompanied each car, and pointed out 
the objects of greatest interest along the route, public buildings, 
churches, institutions of learning and philanthropy, manufactories 
and industrial enterprises ; narrating historic incidents of national 
significance, giving the story of thriving enterprises, describing ad- 
mirable organizations for the comfort and improvement of employes, 
and touching upon new plans and projects for the promotion of the 
higher life of this prosperous community. The series of object les- 
sons thus afforded was by no means an unimportant auxiliary to the 
ends of the Conference. 

The excursion was followed, at 5 :30 o'clock, by a Garden Party, 
in honor of the Conference, at the Presbyterian College for Women. 
The fine old mansion of the College, rich in wonderful historic asso- 
ciations, embowered in the foliage of aged trees and vines, and 
surrounded by gardens of enchanting beauty, offered a hospitality 



Visits to Local Institutions 123 

whose attractiveness is rarely equalled. The hostess was Miss 
McClintock, the President, who was assisted in the reception by the 
Misses Switzer, Kelly, and Melvin, while the other members of the 
faculty and students shared in entertaining the guests. Ices were 
served at dainty little tables set beneath the trees and amid blooming 
shrubbery. Then, as the twilight drew on, the company gathered 
from among the winding walks to the College Auditorium, where 
a concert had been prepared for their further enjoyment. 

VISITS TO LOCAL INSTITUTIONS. 

Columbia is famed for the number and distinction of her benevo- 
lent institutions. Not a few of these were already known to mem- 
bers of the Conference and held in high esteem because of their 
reputation. The opportunity now offered for a nearer acquaintance 
was not to be neglected, and many of those who came from a dis- 
tance were to be found inquiring their way to one and another 
enterprise of beneficent endeavor in which they were interested. 

Several of these are maintained in behalf of the negroes, as for 
example, Benedict College, Allen University, the South Carolina 
Industrial Home, and the Taylor Lane Hospital and Training School 
for Nurses. All of these were visited by a number of their friends, 
who were gratefully welcomed and given every facility for learning 
of the methods pursued and the results obtained. At the two insti- 
tutions first mentioned, special exercises occurred in connection with 
the service of daily worship, and addresses were made by distin- 
guished speakers. Among the speakers at Allen University was 
Chancellor Hill, of Georgia, from whose remarks may be given 
the following words : 

"I was melted to tears when I heard the song of the dark-faced 
old woman of former days. I am glad I was not called sooner ; for I 
certainly would have been unprepared to speak. I know that there are, 
somewhere, wrongs and prejudices against the colored people, but I 
want you to know that there are true white men in Georgia and 
other Southern States who will risk their lives and fortunes for a 
negro just as they would for one of their own race." 



FRIDAY EVENING 



Session in the Columbia Theater. 

The Conference was called to order at g :30 o'clock. 

The Chairman : Word has .been received through a letter, and 
also by a number of telegrams, to the effect that the Honorable 
John W. Small is detained at his home by public engagements of 
an imperative character particularly in the line of educational work. 
There is an issue in his county, I believe upon the question of an 
issue of bonds, the proceeds to be used for educational purposes, so 
that it is no trivial matter that keeps Congressman Small away from 
this meeting. He has favored us with his manuscript of the address 
that he proposed to deliver here this evening. That manuscript will 
be given to the press for publication and will be published in the 
printed report of the proceedings of this Conference. We regret 
intensely the absence of Mr, Small. Those of us who are familiar 
with his influence in North Carolina and elsewhere throughout the 
South prize the address Mr. Small has given us very highly indeed, 
and we are deeply regretful, not only because of the regard that we 
have for him, but because of his interesting personality, and also 
because of his ability and charm in public utterance. For all these 
reasons, both public and personal, we deeply regret his absence from 
the Conference ; and speaking on his behalf I beg all the members 
of the Conference, and particularly all his friends here present, to 
understand that it is no light or trivial reason that has kept him 
away from us, but an unexpected public duty that demanded his 
time and attention. 

THE MOVEMENT FOR LOCAL TAXATION IN THE CARO- 

LINAS. 

Hon. Jno. H. Small, of Washington, North Carolina. 

It is an honor and a pleasure to appear before this Conference 
for Education in the South. The purpose which actuates you 
should appeal to every man and woman whO' love their kind and 
who feel impelled to contribute something of substantial benefit to 



Jno. H. Small 125 

the well-being of their community and their country. Various 
meetings are held in the South, most of which unquestionably have 
a commendable object and justify their existence. Perhaps they are 
intended to promote in some way the economic, industrial or social 
advancement of our people. None have a higher purpose than this 
Conference. You seek to promote methods for the training of all 
our children, to open the public school, not only in our towns but 
in every rural district, and to give an equal opportunity in life to 
every child. 

I am constrained to go- out of my way tO' commend unreservedly 
the work of this Conference and of the Southern and General Edu- 
cation Boards and perhaps I am the more free to dO' so because I 
hold no official position in either body ; and from the fact that I 
have the honor to hold a responsible public position bestowed by 
the good people of Eastern North Carolina, it might be assumed by 
some that I would be chary in expressing myself. I wish to com- 
mend the avowed purposes of this Conference and these Boards and 
the manner in which they have endeavored to carry them out. You 
have sought not to estrange the sections, but to unite them ; not to 
introduce foreign or mis-fit ideas or methods, but to adopt our own 
with such modification as our sense of justice and right may sug- 
gest and help us consecrate them to the work of universal train- 
ing ; not to import new teachers, but to train our own ; not to foment 
discord between the whites and the negroes, but to utilize and recog- 
nize our kindly feelings toward the blacks for and toward the up- 
lifting of an inferior race by proper training of their children, with 
the consequent spiritual and ethical uplift of our own race which 
always follows the paths of duty and humanity ; not to interfere 
with or retard the marvelous industrial progress of the South or 
disorganize its labor, as some skeptics profess to believe, but to dis- 
cipline the mind and furnish an industrial training for the children 
which shall provide the skilled labor sO' necessary tO' make us the 
equal rivals and competitors of other sections in technical skill and 
the manufacture of the finer products ; not to degrade or mar the 
homogeneity of our rural population, but to take the finest products 
of American rural life and free them from the bondage of illiteracy 
and provincialism wherever it exists, extending their horizon, making 
farm life more attractive, enlarging their skill, capacity and mas- 



9—0. E. 



126 Conference for Education in the South 

tery of the soil, increasing the volume and value of their farm pro- 
ducts and extending their efficiency and virility as the nursery of the 
towns and cities and the conservators of our virtues and civilization ; 
not to humiliate us with gifts and stay our initiative and impair our 
independence, but to help us help ourselves train all the children 
for citizenship, for the upbuilding of the community and the main- 
tenance of our liberties. Indeed am I in goodly company among 
these men and women of the North and of the South who stand for 
these ideals. 

While the primary purpose is to efifect the training of all the 
children through the medium of the public schools, there are pre- 
liminary obstacles to be overcome. Money is required which can 
only be secured through taxation. This burden must be voluntarily 
assumed and prompted by a cultivated sense of civic duty. When 
our people have adopted as a part of their political creed a few basic 
propositions, the necessary revenue will be provided, taxation will 
be cheerfully borne and the public school will be cherished as the 
most essential local institution. Each citizen must be taught that it 
is his duty to provide a public school for the training of each child 
in the community, the revenue for which must be obtained by tax- 
ation in the same manner as other governmental functions are dis- 
charged. Each citizen must understand that as an economic and 
social proposition he or she cannot afford tO' permit any child in the 
community to come to maturity untrained and unfitted to perform 
life's duties. These fundamental truths are fortunately not only 
consistent with a democracy, but necessary to an attainment of the 
highest ideals. 

In providing revenue for public education the limit has about been 
reached in general taxation by the State of North Carolina, and I 
presume that such a condition substantially prevails in South Caro- 
lina. If this were not true, it is doubtful whether it would be wise 
for the States to increase the present tax rates for schools. North 
Carolina has for several years been making annual appropriations 
for distribution and also for supplementing the fund in the weak 
counties and districts. The amount apportioned to rural districts 
is sometimes not effectively utilized. This condition is caused by the 
employment of untrained teachers, but particularly by the small en- 
rollment and attendance as compared with the number of children 



J no. H. Small 127 

of school age. Where these conditions prevail, the allotment of 
further money would largely be wasted. It is here that a campaign 
for education among the adults must be inaugurated in order to 
arouse them to their duty, followed by a movement for a local tax. 
The new spirit aroused in such a district, coupled with the sense of 
responsibility arising from the payment of the local tax, will work 
a revolution in the public school of such a district which could be 
efifected in no other manner. 

The unit for local taxation should be the township or the school 
district, and, preferably, the latter. The more the local tax is local- 
ized, the more interest will be aroused in its expenditure and the 
conduct of the school. To the end that the school fund may be 
larger, thereby insuring a more commodious building, better equip- 
ment, better teachers and better results for the pupils, the rural 
districts should be as large as the topography of the section and 
other conditions will permit. Smaller districts should be consoli- 
dated and where necessary the pupils should be transported to school 
at public expense, which would be an economical expenditure con- 
sidering the benefits to the children. 

This local tax should only be levied by consent of the people of 
the district, or by the majority at an election. The revenue for the 
maintenance of the school must be provided by the taxpayers and 
not by the gifts from the outside. No hot-house methods ever es- 
tablished effective schools. If such schools could be maintained by 
benevolence or charity, it would be unfortunate and inadvisable. 
How shall the consent of the voters and taxpayers be obtained? 
By educating the adults, by appealing to their sense of civic duty 
and arousing the spiritual sense of the people, by object lessons of 
the value of training and by showing the relation of trained citizen- 
ship to economic and industrial development. 

The movement is necessarily of slow progress. All great move- 
ments are slow in the process of evolution. Man is naturally a 
creature of habit and a conservator of the past. Inactivity and 
passiveness in any line of social or civic life is more difficult to over- 
come than it is to change activity from one channel to another. As 
unpleasant as the retrospection may be, the truth is that we of the 
South have not in the past cultivated the sentiment that education 
was for all. We have trained the few and did it well, but some- 
times in a passive way and at other times more actively, we have 



128 Conference for Education in the South 

let it be known that there was a class of our white population, par- 
ticularly in our rural sections, to whom the public school was not 
a necessity. Their fathers labored and tilled the soil and made a 
living without school training. Why, some said, should not their 
children do likewise. Many plausible excuses could be made for this 
condition which it would not be profitable now to discuss. We cul- 
tivated religion, we inculcated morality and integrity, we taught 
individual independence and love of liberty, we produced brave men 
and virtuous women, we preserved our racial integrity, we built 
homes and conserved the homely and essential virtues, but we forgot 
to erect the attractive and commodious school building on every hill 
and in every valley, we failed to train the teachers for our public 
schools, and in the desire for low taxes we forgot that no people 
are too poor to provide the money to train their children. Now 
that we are trying to reverse these conditions, it is well to remember 
that time is essential. The new propaganda must be preached in 
the home and in every school district. Literature must be dissemi- 
nated. The arsenal of the press must be supplied with facts and 
arguments with which to join in the crusade. Prejudice in high 
places must be overcome. The movement must be insistent, but soft- 
ened by love and patience. Young men and women who have seen the 
light, who have learned that the highest civic virtue lies in uplift- 
ing the community and the State and that it can best be done by 
giving an opportunity to every child, must be mustered into service 
in this army of workers. Teachers must be trained not only for 
their aid in the field, but to the end that their services may be sup- 
plied as district after district demands them. 

These I understand to be the primary purposes of this Confer- 
ence and of the Southern and General Education Boards. To repeat 
in part what I have already stated, you do not seek to pauperize us 
with charity or to mar our social fabric or to retard our industrial 
progress, but to lend your presence and encouragement to our move- 
ment for universal education and fuller opportunities for all the 
children. If the two Boards can go further and help us "preach a 
crusade," can aid weak rural districts in the eflfort to help them- 
selves by supplementing the local funds for building schoolhouses, 
we will welcome the aid and remember with gratitude the donors. 

I was to speak of the movement for local taxation in the Carolinas. 
This is a happy joinder. The two States have historic authority 



J no. H. Small 129 

and inducement for close relationship. They have marched abreast 
in this movement for equal training and freer opportunities for all 
the children and have adopted local taxation as the most effective 
means for success. If I dared to invade the harmony of this edu- 
cational companionship, I might insist that North Carolina was 
ahead in the race, but it is certainly more prudent to avoid invidious 
comparisons. There is enough in the record of each for supreme 
satisfaction and to enable us to "thank God and take courage." 

From the annual report of the Superintendent of Education for 
South Carolina for 1904, I obtained the following information re- 
garding the local tax movement in that State. Three hundred and 
forty districts levied special taxes in 1904, and of these forty-six 
were added during that year. The amount of this local tax varied 
from 40 cents to 10 cents on each $100 valuation of property. The 
receipts from local tax in 1904 amounted to $200,868.25. As show- 
ing the gradual increase in local taxation, it is interesting to note 
that in 1894 it amounted to $73,621.15 and in 1899 to 93,088.49. 

For North Carolina I have obtained data to April 20, 1905, from 
the office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction. The num- 
ber of local tax districts in the State is 237. Of this number there 
were voted between 1880 and 1900 only eighteen districts. From 
1900 to date there have been voted 219 districts. The following 
table will prove interesting : 

Number local tax districts voted during 1900 6 

Number local tax districts voted during 1901 16 

Number local tax districts voted during 1902 17 

Number local tax districts voted during 1903 99 

Number local tax districts voted during 1904 39 

Number local tax districts voted during 1905 to April 20th. . 10 
Number local tax districts voted during, dates unrecorded ... 32 
Out of ninety-eight counties there are seventy-three which have 

one or more local tax districts. 

Number of local tax districts classed as city schools, . 62 

Number of local tax districts classed as rural schools. , 175 

Amount of fund raised by local taxation 1901-1902. .$176,897.81 
Amount of fund raised by local taxation 1903- 1904. . 566,989.30 
The following are the leading local tax counties in the State : 

Guilford County has 26 districts, Dare County has 18, Mecklen- 



130 Conference for Education in the South 

berg County has 15, and Alamance County has 9. There are 31 
districts which will hold local tax elections between this date and 
June I, 1905. 

The number of rural local tax districts is a most gratifying feat- 
ure. I have not the number of distinctive rural local tax districts in 
South Carolina, but an inspection of the names of the districts would 
indicate that about the same proportion prevails as in North Caro- 
lina. It is there that the harvest is ripe and where the necessity for 
work is greater. Surely it appears that the Carolinas have set the 
pace in this movement for local taxation for their sister States of 
the South. I predict that the movement will continue and that ulti- 
mately with a continuance of the same zeal, patience and fidelity, 
the local tax districts will cover the Carolinas. 

What a blessed consummation this would be. 

The Chairman : We will now proceed with the program 
of the evening and will hear an address upon "Some Educational 
Misapprehensions," by Ernest Hamlin Abbott, of New York, whom 
I now have the pleasure to present. 

SECTIONAL MISAPPREHENSION. 
By Ernest Hamlin Abbott. 

Not many days ago I sat talking with an elderly New England 
schoolmaster in his modest study. His courtesy, his cultivation, and 
the wide range of his information, unspoiled by pretense in manner 
or surroundings, reminded me of another schoolmaster with whom 
I had talked under similar circumstances in Virginia. These two 
men were more closely bound together than by their common citi- 
zenship in the republic of letters ; they were of the same stock and 
bore the fruit of the same traditions. Together they were an impres- 
sive witness to the unity of that English strain of blood and culture, 
South and North, which has made, and by God's grace will preserve, 
this land. 

This New England schoolmaster told me stories of his life as a 
prisoner of war, but the story that went deepest into my memory 
was that he told of a Southern clergyman whose charge was in the 
neighborhood of the prison. This stanch Confederate made it his 
business to look after the sick and dying among the Federal soldiers. 



Ernest H. Abbott 131 

If a soldier seemed about to die, he took his name and the names 
of his friends or relatives ; he had headboards made, and on one of 
these the name of each prisoner who died was inscribed. In a cem- 
etery not far away, out of some thirteen or fourteen thousand graves 
only ninety-four were marked ; but in the burial-place for this prison, 
of the thirteen or fourteen hundred Federal dead only one hundred 
and thirty rest unknown. That showed what this Southern clergy- 
man did. When at last the end of the war came and the Federal 
troops took possession of the place, every Northern soldier who 
came there knew this clergyman at once, and on meeting him saluted 
him. Like other Confederate sympathizers under similar circum- 
stances, the clergyman feared for the safety of his property and 
went to the Union officer in charge to request a guard. He was 
asked his name. 

"I am the Rev. George Washington Dame." 

"So you are the Rev. George Washington Dame, are you? No," 
the Northern ofificer made answer, 'T can't give you a guard." 

The clergyman expostulated ; he argued that others had obtained 
the privilege of a guard. The Northerner was relentless. Finally, 
in desperation, the clergyman asked : "Since you finally refuse me 
this request, will you at least satisfy my curiosity and tell me why." 

"Certainly," the Federal officer replied. "You surely must know 
that I've been told what you've done. Why, you are as safe as the 
Commander of the Sixth Army Corps !" 

This incident, like many another, revealed as in a flash of light 
the community of feeling between North and South which existed 
even during the war. It was this underlying kinship which more 
than all political and military measures made disunion impossible. 
The war was a test of Fate ; and Fate stood the test. 

We Americans, however, seem to enjoy the game of baiting des- 
tiny. As if not satisfied with the war, we tried worrying Fate into 
changing her mind by all the blunders and perversities of the Re- 
destruction Period. Since then we have been slowly geting tired of 
this cruel sport. The tragedy has come, not to the destiny of the 
Nation, but to those who have suffered from the use of their own 
weapons, sectional misapprehensions. 

It has often been said that sectional misapprehensions are due to 
the fact that the people of one section do not understand the con- 



132 Conference for Edvication in the South 

ditions existing in the others. To make it specific : Southerners 
have frequently maintained that before the war Northerners were 
unacquainted with the conditions of Hfe caused by slavery, and that 
today a Northerner who visits the South cannot understand the 
conditions of life there unless he makes the South his home. If this 
were so, we might as well abandon at once our attempts to under- 
stand one another. For one, I do not believe it ; indeed, I think there 
is reason for believing exactly the opposite. The best interpreters 
of American life have been a Frenchman and an Englishman, De 
Tocqueville and Bryce. There are certain advantages a visitor has 
over a resident in discovering the various sides of life in a city. 
Any one of you, I believe, could find out in two days' time much 
of what happens in the village in which I live that is quite hidden 
from me. 

There is nothing mystic or esoteric about what people do or how 
they live. To ascertain that requires little more than diligence. 
But it is quite a dififerent task to learn what they believe and how 
they. feel. Sectional misapprehensions have lasted because, in study- 
ing how the other section lives, each section has forgotten to learn 
what the people of the other section profoundly believe. 

The misapprehension that one section desires to read any lesson to 
the other need not be discussed. We are not children. We are ma- 
ture enough to exchange ideas on any subject we choose. 

The first misapprehension will be cleared away when we realize 
that there is no one Northern, no^ one Southern, opinion. There 
is, it is true, a profound determination in the South that race in- 
tegrity shall be preserved ; but this is the conscious expression of 
an instinct which exists subconsciously elsewhere in the country, 
and which bursts into conscious expression whenever occasion de- 
mands. The mixture of stupidity and intelligence in the expression 
of this instinct is not sectional, it is about the same in every locality. 
Apart from this common instinct there is a variety in opinion which 
is becoming more and more pronounced. The extremists on either 
side are no longer regarded as representative. This does not mean 
that distinctions are being erased. It means rather that the old 
artificial or rather fortuitous distinction between South and North 
is being supplanted by the truer distinction between the Thinking 
and the Thoughtless, between the Earnest and the Frivolous, be- 
tween the Humane and the Brutal. 



Ernest H. Abbott 133 

There are, unfortunately, thoughtless, frivolous, and brutal men 
North and South. There are also, at least in the North, twO' other 
classes which are contributing little to the dissipation of sectional 
misapprehensions. These two classes are the doctrinaires and the 
commercially minded. These two classes are often supposed to be 
representative of the North. In the old days they were respectively 
the revolutionary abolitionists and the slave-traders. They still 
serve a highly useful purpose as devil's advocates. Is there a move- 
ment for the extension of industrial education ; one class argues 
against it as an abandonment of educational ideals, and therefore 
stirs the sentiment in its favor. Is there a suggestion to endow a 
university; then the other class, by asserting that what the country 
needs is not universities but factories, keeps, by the law of contraries, 
the popular feeling in favor of education keen. 

Just as, among many Northerners, the utterance of some South- 
ern demagogue or the editorial of some Southern paper of an ugly 
breed or uncertain ternper is considered as an expression of the 
Southern view, so among Southerners the brutal commercialism 
of some materials or the ill-considered threat of the Northern closet 
philosopher is accepted as the Northern view. In this wise an hon- 
ored writer of the South declared a few years ago, and recently 
republished his declaration, concerning the North, that "its teachers, 
its preachers, its writers, its orators, its philosophers, its politicians, 
have with one voice, and that a mighty voice, been for a hundred 
years instilling into its mind the uncontradicted doctrine that the 
South brought the negro here and bound him in slavery; that the 
South kept the negro in slavery ; that to perpetuate this enormity 
the South plunged the Nation in war, and attempted to destroy the 
Union ; that the South still desires the re-establishment of slavery, 
and that meantime it oppresses the negro, defies the North, and 
stands a constant menace to the Union." May I, without offense, 
characterize this as an example of sectional misapprehension? It 
is true that there are some people in the North who might accept 
this formula for "substance of doctrine," though few who would 
subscribe to every one of its articles. But to say that the North with 
one voice is saying this, or with one mind even is thinking this, is 
to mistake the voice of a few for the voice and the mind of the 
many. Indeed, in the North, as in the South, I believe there are 
many minds, many voices. 



134 Conference for Education in the So.uth 

No one, therefore, has the right, least of all have I the right, to 
speak for the North. It is becoming nowadays to assume to speak 
only for one's self. Nevertheless, there is a body of opinion which 
may be said to belong to what Mr. Hamilton W. Mabie, in the 
"South Atlantic Quarterly," has termed "The New North." In that 
term are included all who desire not to abandon their own convic- 
tions, but to understand the convictions of Americans in the South, 
and who will not be surprised or displeased to find that their own 
convictions and the convictions of the most thoughtful, earnest, and 
humane people of the South are essentially the same. 

It will tend to remove some sectional misapprehensions, I hope, 
to state certain propositions which, in contradiction to a widespread 
impression in the South, are considered in this "New North" as by 
no means strange or foreign doctrine. May I put these propositions 
in the form of a creed? For I know at least one other Northerner 
besides myself who holds to them. 

With reference to the past : 

We believe that not the South but the whole Nation was respon- 
sible for the existence of the institution that created Sectionalism ; 
that therefore the whole Nation and not the South alone should 
bear the burdens which that institution has bequeathed to us today. 

We believe that, however complicated the conditions were that 
occasioned the war, the men of the Confederate armies laid down 
their lives, not to perpetuate slavery, but to settle a controversy that 
had its beginning before the adoption of the Federal Constitution. 

We believe that the so-called Reconstruction Period wrought more 
for sectional misunderstanding and animosity than all the bitter- 
ness of war ; that the prime blunder of that period was that the 
sovereign people of the Nation permitted the Federal Government 
to base its action on distrust of the theretofore sovereign people of 
the South. 

With reference to the present and future, what we believe may be 
stated in this wise : 

Race integrity is to be assumed in any discussion of the problems 
affecting our country. This does not mean that in the American 
people of the future there will not be the blood of many peoples. 
As the English are a blend of Angle, Saxon, Norman, Celt, and 
ancient Briton, so the American people of the future may well in- 
clude a blend of English, Teuton, Slav, and Latin. But it does mean 



Ernest H. Abbott 135 

that the division of mankind into certain great distinct races will con- 
tinue in America, so far as we can see, for all time. 

This being true, the American ideal must include not only justice 
to every man, but also justice to every race. In some way these 
divisional races must be treated as units, and they must be treated 
fairly. This does not necessarily mean that each race must have an 
identical experience with every other race, any more than justice to 
individuals involves an identical mode of treating every individual. 
If a race is backward, justice demands that public education be 
adopted to bring it through the intermediate stages from immaturity 
to full growth. Justice to the race means, too, that every child of 
that race should, consistently with race integrity, be born into the 
best possible environment the community can secure. There is a 
certain kind of heredity that is post-natal. We inherit the English 
language, we inherit a sound monogamous family life, we inherit 
a certain communal public opinion that is as much a power as de- 
liberate processes of education. Such inheritance ought not to be 
distinctive of any one race in America ; the safety of our Nation de- 
pends upon its being the common possession of all. 

But this should be clear, as a Northern man said to me with em- 
phasis : race justice means justice not only to the minority races, 
but also justice to the majority race; fairness to the negro and the 
Mongol, and also to^ the white. 

Civil liberty, we also believe, ought, under a democratic govern- 
ment, to be guaranteed to every man, woman, and child ; but the 
right to administer the instruments of government is not a part of 
civil liberty ; this right is limited in every free government. So long 
as the community observes the principle of justice to the individual 
and justice to the race, the community, as such, is, as it should be, 
free to decide how. and by whom the government should be admin- 
istered. In other words, the State has the right to determine, by any 
mode consistent with justice, what condition and limitations shall be 
put upon the exercise of the franchise. 

In a land where cultivation of justice between man and man and 
between race and race, where the nature of the communal inherit- 
ance and where the character of the government, all depend on the 
intelligence and efficiency of the people, education is not a luxury 
but a necessity. There must be, we therefore believe, a revision of 
the theory of education. The idea must prevail that education is 



136 Conference for Education in the South 

not the bestowal of traditional information, and not even the exer- 
cise of certain intellectual powers, but the training of all the facul- 
ties. The sphere of education, on the one hand, needs to be en- 
larged ; and the methods of education, on the other hand, need to 
be more elastic. The man who has been taught how to do but not how 
to think, or how to think and not how to do, has not been well edu- 
cated. The popular discussion of "frills and fads" in the public 
schools of New York City is based almost altogether on a theory of 
education that needs revision. The distinction between Industrial 
and Higher Education is a false distinction ; there is only one kind 
of education which is higher than any other; that is the education 
which enables a life to render the utmost possible service which that 
particular life can render to the community. 

After all, is not the great sectional misapprehension this : that the 
South is on one side with its own body of opinion and its own prob- 
lem ; and the North on the other side with a different body of opin- 
ion and a different set of problems? Sectional misapprehensions 
will disappear when we all recognize that there are two ideals which 
are not open for discussion : first, the best practicable development of 
each individual and each race ; and, second, at the same time the 
scrupulous preservation of race integrity. 

With those twO' ideals accepted as settled beyond controversy we 
shall see that the problems, social, political, industrial, and educa- 
tional, of this land, though they assume different forms in different 
communities, are in essence identical. North and South. Misappre- 
hensions must needs continue ; but they will be individual, not sec- 
tional. Problems will continue; but two problems will disappear. 
The Race Problem will be resolved into an accepted Condition, and 
the Educational Problem will be resolved into an accepted holy Obli- 
gation. 

The Chairman : We now have the privilege of hearing the Hon. 
Edward M. Shepard, of Brooklyn, N. Y., who will address you upon 
the topic, The Effect of this Educational Work North and South. We 
are happy in having this night an official representative of the Col- 
lege of the City of New York, which was so fully described to us 
last evening b}^ the Hon. Seth Low. Mr. Shepard is in the direc- 
torate of this important part of the public educational system of New 
York City ; and therefore, in addition to the other ties, we have the 



Edward M. Shepard 137 

educational tie that binds Mr. Shepard to the sympathies of this 
audience. I have the honor to present him. 

Hon. Edward M. Shepard. 

Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: 

The progress made by Cokimbia since my visit here ten }/ears ago 
one hardly expects in so old and refined a civilization as this. In a 
city whose residences and gardens have so long been beautiful, a 
city with so long time a charm in debonair social life, it is a surprise 
to find arisen a vigorous, expanding manufacturing energy alertly 
and successfully asserting a right to a large share of modern markets. 
I know of no other city in our country of which it is now so doubtful 
whether the dominant note of its future career is to be its business 
prosperity or the dignity of its residential life. 

If, citizens of Columbia, with your civilization which, for our 
country, is so ancient — if here, where there was learning before 
learning got even a foothold in most of the Northern or Western 
States— if here, where one and two centuries ago the relations with 
the scholarship of Europe were really effective while nearly all of our 
Northern communities were shut from the refinement of Europe by 
conditions of crude and isolated separation — if Columbia and South 
Carolina with all of their past are to enter, or, since indeed, 
you are already entered, upon a powerful exploitation of trade 
and manufacture and industrial wealth, then you, no less than 
your visitors from the North, have to deal with this question of 
the education of the masses. Mr. Ogden and the rest of us who 
have come from crowding and difficult problems — or rather have 
brought them here to share with you — are fortunate, not only in the 
enjoyment of this generous hospitality, but in the opportunity to 
learn and take back "with us lessons of an experience far longer than 
that of most American communities. Some of our problems at home 
we have thought to be new or, perhaps, peculiar to ourselves. But 
here we find that the very same problems were dealt with by citizens 
of South Carolina one or two hundred years ago. We shall return, 
therefore, helped and, I believe, cheered to deal with our own prob- 
lems. If, in what we here say, there appear sympathy with citizens 
of the South in the solution of their problems, it is because the 
problems are the same with them and with us. 



138 Conference for Education in the South 

The educational problems of our day and generation are truly the 
same throughout this whole land of ours — east and west, north and 
south. It is not in underlying reality one problem in New York 
and another in South Carolina. We may well, therefore, learn from 
you and you learn from us. Nor may we, for this, trust altogether 
the communications of print and writing, of letters and newspapers 
and reviews. The gatherings at the Northeast, at the West, at the 
South which in late years we have owed to the President of this 
meeting as we have owed them to no other single man, have been 
of enormous usefulness. Not only have they better established 
friendship, but they have aided intellectual understanding. As you 
and I look intO' one another's faces, and hear the tones and accents 
of one another's voices, there is that subtle communication of fellow 
feeling and mutual knowledge quite beyond the power of written or 
printed word. Even in my profession of the law the ablest judges 
confess that argument, where the judge sees and hears the man who 
speaks and the advocate sees and perhaps hears the man who listens, 
face and voice and manner over and above articulated words, carry 
something to the heart, something to the brain. Therefore it is that 
we of the Northeast rejoice — very certainly we ought to rejoice — as 
we receive the teachers, apostles and prophets of the West and the 
South. Again and again they have inspired and carried us to new 
zeal and surer knowledge. We cannot here fully discharge our debt. 
But we can at least let you know that we have troubles upon which 
you can better advise because you also have troubles. 

And now, ladies and gentlemen, what is the problem? Is it any- 
thing less than that which the recent and splendid industrial growth 
of Columbia suggests? When an American visits England — when, 
for instance, with the racial instinct of the soil of his own ancestry, he 
wanders over the mellow Southland of Britain, those meadows near 
the Channel which have been cut for a thousand years and more, 
when he observes a civilization which, though no better because it is 
ancient, nevertheless has a richness of finish which nothing but an- 
tiquity will bring — the visitor marvels at what has been achieved 
and hardly thinks of the future. When an Englishman comes to 
New York and Chicago and Atlanta, even though he has seen the 
dense forests which lie within fifty miles of the City Hall of each of 
them, or the wild land within forty miles of the State House of 
Boston, he, too, if he be intelligent, is struck with the marvel of 



Edward M. Shepard 139 

achievement, how the Americans have conquered nature, made 
farms and gardens, built great cities, established trans-continental 
railroads of splendid efficiency — how in a thousand ways they have 
opened up this land of wonderful resources. But he thinks still 
more — as an American does not think in England — of the future. 
He knows — for he sees — that the strength, energy, skill, patience 
which have accomplished all this are no whit abated, but greater 
than ever, and likely in the next generation and the next and the next 
to be still greater. When this English visitor realizes that the 
crowded life and ripened polish of old civilization in England 
or France or Belgium are of a certainty, in the providence of God, 
to be reproduced over the whole United States, then, indeed, does 
his imagination become more active than his observation. Won- 
derful as is all the retrospect of American achievement, how much 
greater, how much beyond the very dreams of imagination is the 
future civilization of the people who are to live in the American land. 
If from New York State you except the City of New York, which 
my friend, Mayor Low, would tell us, is in many and characteristic 
ways, a community of and by itself — the density of its remaining 
population is only about twice the density of the population of South 
Carolina, which at no distant day will equal it. There are those 
here tonight who will live to see the density of the population at 
both North and South twice as great as it is today. Within the 
life of generations for whose welfare and happiness we are under an 
immediate responsibility, the density of population in the United 
States will be three times as great, five times as great, as it is today. 
There goes with this increase a change of great significance. South 
Carolina farms which, forty years ago, were 400 or 500 or 600 acres 
apiece have grown steadily smaller until they are farms of ninety 
acres apiece ; and a precisely like thing has been going on in many 
parts of the North. With the increase in the density of population 
and the accompanying increase in the value of lands where the 
population is dense, the productivity of the land is increasing and 
must increase. Scientific men are telling us that the fertility of the 
soil may come to depend in chief part upon the capacity of its vege- 
table growth to drink in from the air and release to the ground in- 
exhaustible nitrogen as the raw material for manufacture into food 
by the marvellous processes of nature. They tell us that all soils, 
even those we have considered hopeless, are, by improved cultures 



140 Conference for Edtication in the South 

for nitrogen absorption, capable of great and even enormous devel- 
opment of their fertility so as to produce twice, five times, ten times 
what they have heretofore been capable of producing. This suggests 
a vast increase in the ability of land to maintain population and with 
it a vast future increase in the density of population. Our American 
land beyond any doubt and — speaking in words fit to the lifetime of 
a nation^ — at no distant period, is to hold a population of probably 
six hundred million. Your State, powerful and famous a common- 
wealth as it already is, is inevitably to be a veritable kingdom in its 
population and in its wealth. 

Here, men and women, is the opportunity, here our duty, here 
perhaps our fate. For what does all this mean ? What is to be the 
life — what the civilization of the crowding generations to come? 
How are we to deal with these problems of denser population which 
we cannot escape ? When matter is compressed, or bodies of matter 
collide, heat is generated. At school I learned that the inexhaustible 
stores of heat of the sun perhaps result from the vast and continuous 
descent upon its surface of the scattered fragments of the solar 
system. If the crowding of matter and its frictions generate heat, so 
the crowding of men and their frictions make quarrels or create the 
danger of quarrels. This danger has increased and will increase 
more and more. Since we may not choose whether or not the con- 
ditions of life hereafter are to be crowded, since the coming of the 
crowd is an unalterable fact fixed by divine decree which neither you 
nor I, whatever our ideals or our wishes, may change, we shall not 
and cannot avoid the danger. The only question open is — how are 
we to meet the danger — ^what are we to do with and for this coming 
condition of humanity? Very certainly one of two things will hap- 
pen ; we Americans have tO' choose between two kinds of civilization. 
It is to be a crowded civilization of decay and despair, or a crowded 
civilization of growth and hope. With the vast increase in density 
of population may come a civilization which, however ancient, which, 
however much it may arrogate to itself the unyielding sanctity of the 
laws of the Medes and Persians, will be none the less a civilization 
stupid, heavy, stolid, with its life habits set to a routine, without 
buoyancy, without spontaneity, with all the joy of new and beneficent 
wisdom long since evaporated. That possibly is to be the fate of 
America. The active centuries of Anglo-Saxon civilization are, per- 
haps, to end in a cycle of Cathay. It may be that we are to become 



Edward M. Shepard 141 

as Qiina was before it was of late rudely awakened from its sleep 
of centuries. I do not believe it ; there is another and the true alter- 
native. In your sympathetic presence here, in the labors of Mr. 
Ogden and of the men with him, I see the promise of something far 
different. I find that promise in the enlightened treatment of the 
inevitable problem of the crowded humanity, that is to say — in 
righteous education. To this must America devote herself, if, among 
her crowds of men and women, she is not tO' have ignorances and 
hatreds and jealousies and crimes. If the denser population of the 
future is to be alert, energetic, hopeful, happy, if there is to be mutual 
respect and mutual help, it must have disciplined intelligence. We 
are to have either the crowded life of intelligent men and women with 
all that that means, or the crowded life of ignorant men and women 
with all that that means. The peace of our land cannot be one of 
quiet and lotus eating unless it is bye-and-bye to be the peace of dry 
rot. The peace which is worth while is that of intelligent prosperity 
and belongs to active, vigorous, driving civilization. But its vast 
and splendid results cannot be reached unless through the high dis- 
cipline of the intellectual and moral capacity of men and women, 
unless every man carry his own achievement to the limit which his 
instincts and tastes and intellectual powers permit. I say every man 
— every woman. 

For we have, in this land, been dedicated by a venerable and 
irreversible decree, to a future of democracy — to a belief in the 
individual man, in his spontaniety, his force, his dignity, his own 
separate and sacred rights. This democracy is cardinal, essential, 
fundamental to America and its future. I do not for the moment 
deal with the difficulties arising from racial or social differences. 
They present another problem which must, if it please God, be solved 
with justice and equity and in essential agreement with our 
democracy. But, leaving for the moment the exceptions and em- 
barrassments which trouble our generation and may trouble several 
generations to come — and without for the moment dealing with the 
like problems of other races, the problems of your race and my 
race are problems of inexorable democracy. Perhaps the chief of 
them today is how to preserve democracy itself — the right of every 
man and of every woman to work out his or her career to its ben- 
eficent utmost^ — to prevent our life of labor from becoming a mere 
interplay between gigantic corporations and captains of industry of 

]0— c. E. 



142 Conference for Education in the South 

enormous power at the top and below of great consolidated trade 
unions. Surely the democracy of our land, the human individuality 
of the American, must not be ground to powder between such an 
upper and such a nether mill stone. Surely this is to be the land of 
the small producer, the land of the man who, when he tills his farm 
tills it as his own master and not as the agent of some great corpora- 
tion or power or master at a distance. 

So then it is that our American land is to be a land of crowded 
life, a land of great wealth, a land of democracy. How, then, shall 
we harness together these three great elemental powers? How are 
we to solve the problem? There is no other solution than the best 
development of the capacity and efficiency, and the individual spon- 
taneity and dignity of the individual man or woman. Whether on 
the industrial side or on the governing side, there is no other solution 
than that the powers exercised shall be of that kind which comes 
from knowledge. It will not suffice — when vast enterprises of in- 
dustry and vast concerns of government are to be dealt with — that 
in the people there shall be sound hearts, honest minds. Them we 
must have ; but they are not enough. There must be the intelligence 
to judge and choose in the great questions of industrial and public 
life between what is false and what is true. 

Think for a moment of these public questions, of which I will not 
say that they are within our distant foresight, but of which I say 
that they are already upon us. Take the danger of corporate wealth. 
I am here neither to affirm nor deny the benefits of corporate organ- 
ization ; but I do affirm what no sensible American can, in my 
opinion,* deny, that with the growing power of such wealth and 
whether it grow rightly or wrongly, there comes a grave menace. 
No intelligent American can keep his eyes and ears open without 
perceiving that in some way or another the American people will 
have to deal with the growth of corporate wealth through instru- 
mentalities of government and with the control of those instrumental- 
ities by corporate wealth. These problems are to be discussed at 
political meetings ; they are to be voted on at the polls ; and the 
ballot box, whether for such questions or for other questions, will 
in the long run represent nothing better than the average conscience, 
intelligence and practical wisdom of those who vote. If the con- 
science be true and the honesty be sound, nevertheless if there be 
ignorance, if the furies of foolish terror shall rule, the result will 



Edwa/rd M. Shepard 143 

be as great a calamity as if it were dealt with in an interested or 
brutal temper. 

There are the problems of taxation with which the tens, and by- 
and-by the hundreds of millions of American voters are to deal. 
When the Legislature of my State meets, our business community is 
in a tremor over threats of new forms of taxation. We know there 
and, doubtless, you know here, that whether in the administration of 
our States or of our National Government there are many and 
serious injustices of taxation. Those are made to bear the burden 
who ought not to bear it and those are relieved from the burden 
who ought to bear it. The injustices which exist are often, no doubt, 
less than would be the injustices resulting from foolish, reckless, ill- 
considered changes which are urged upon the American people by 
facile thinkers and eloquent speakers who find their support in a sort 
of dumb but not clear thinking sense of injustice rankling in the 
hearts of American men and women. When voters consider these 
problems, they are apt to look at their own conditions. The extent 
to which they may be forced to consider the condition of other men, 
depends not only upon their honesty of heart, but upon the accuracy 
of their sense of justice. The attention of the masses of Americans 
will be fixed more and more upon these questions of taxation, as time 
goes on. Out of such questions have come great wars, great revolu- 
tions. Our republic was itself born of a struggle over a tax of three 
pence on tea. Few things in our public life corrode more the happi- 
ness of citizens than the idea which they have, either justly or 
unjustly, that taxation is unequal. There will always in our land 
be rich men — very rich men — always the middle class of men, always 
poor men, and always, alas, as long as human nature remains what 
it is, there will be the very poor. Until we can abolish the differences 
of wisdom and folly, of industry and self-indulgence, of health and 
disease, of genius and incapacity, there will be more fortunate and 
less fortunate men, and there will be that perfectly natural and 
not always ignoble distress with which the less fortunate man ob- 
serves the wealth and power of the more fortunate man. All this 
leads to movements for new or different taxation and for govern- 
mental regulation. That is to say, these problems are to be solved 
by democratic masses, each voter exercising his judgment upon 
questions which often baffle the ability of the wisest and most ex- 
perienced men. The very future of our republic may depend upon 



144 Conference for Education in the South 

the correctness of the conclusion of the masses upon questions almost 
technical in their character. 

Then there are the problems of urban administration with which 
the voters of cities and towns, and even rural communities, have to 
deal. The day is coming when the United States instead of being a 
land of rural life, with all of its ideals those of the farm, is to be a 
country of cities, of urban influences. In the Italy of the Renais- 
sance the states were Venice, Florence, Padua, Milan, Bologna, 
Ferrara, and the like — each of them a town with appurtenant terri- 
tory about its center of life — the dwellers on farms and in the fields 
within each state finding their organized and organizing center of 
life in its chief city. We shall come to that in our country. Your 
City of Columbia, instead of being as now a place at which the 
will of the masses of farmers is registered, a mere resultant of rural 
ideals, will be itself a manufacturing and residential center at which 
the farming masses will find and adopt urban ideals. The city will 
determine political and industrial organization. The national life of 
our great republic beyond a doubt is to become in great part an 
interplay between the forces of its great cities, between New York 
and New Orleans, between Charleston and Boston, between San 
Francisco and Portland. The administrative and other problems of 
the city are, therefore, to be among the chief problems of the country. 
Shall the city own its gas works, its electric lighting plant, the surface 
and rapid transit railroads within its borders? Shall its thorough- 
fares and streets be used excepting by itself or under its direct con- 
trol? Shall it build model tenements? Shall it house its poor? 
Shall it feed its schoolchildren? For all these things are done or 
proposed.. What are to be its investments? How is it to raise its 
moneys? These problems are perplexing and even marvellous to 
the last degree. How are they to be solved? Simply by a whole- 
some conscience and a sound heart? No. They need acute and dis- 
ciplined intelligence. But who are the men who are to solve the 
problems? They are the voters. It is their acute and disciplined 
intelligence which is needed. Every man who votes contributes his 
share to the solution or to prevent the solution. Of course, when I 
speak of disciplined intelligence, I do not mean book learning. I 
mean the intelligence which, however it may have been acquired, has 
somewhat learned the lessons of experience and is somewhat in- 
spired by practical wisdom. 



Edward M. Shepard 145 

So the industrial future of America. Can there be doubt that the 
triumphs of industry must be the triumphs of intelHgence as well 
as of character. There are few studies more interesting or sug- 
gestive than the study of the productivity of human labor. There is 
a prosaic book of statistics, a book marvellous as an accomplishment 
of human industry and skill — I mean Mulhall's Dictionary of Sta- 
tistics. Lately I reread some statements of that distinguished 
Englishman dealing with relative productivities of labor. Do you 
know that one farm hand in America — I mean in the United States — 
produces as much as two in England or as three in Germany or as 
five in Austria or as seven in Russia? That is what Mulhall states. 
He tells us that the number of farmers and farm laborers in Europe 
is just nine times that of the United States while the weight of food 
is only double. That is to say, four and one-half Europeans raise 
as much food as does one American. When we learn such a fact 
from evidence impossible to contradict, we must think what it means. 
It does not mean the advantages of the soil, for in the northeastern 
part of the United States and in much of the South, you have a 
soil unfertile, full of obdurate resistance to industrial struggle. If 
they have sandy stretches in northern Europe, so do we have sandy 
stretches. If they have stony fields, so do we. If some of the Euro- 
pean climate is unfavorable, so is some of the American climate. 
No, it is not the soil, and it is not the climate. It is said that we are 
more scientific in our farm work. But that puts the explanation back 
only one step. Why are we more scientific? I tell you, ladies and 
gentlemen, that the advantage in the productivity of American labor, 
where it is productive, is in the buoyancy and hope of free intelli- 
gence, of enlightened ambition. It is that buoyant hope which has 
entered the brain and captured the heart of the American. Euro- 
peans tell us that we work as they do not work. It is true, for we 
work with an energetic confidence born of the equal rights and equal 
privileges of a democracy. No labor, however elementary, how- 
ever humble it is, if done by a brutish man, is equal in value to the 
same labor done by a man confiding in the justice, the fairness and 
the mercy of those among whom he lives. No labor done by a man 
anxious whether he shall reap its results, is equal to the labor of a 
man who knows that he will receive what he shall have earned. So 
it is that the intelligence for which this Conference stands is an in- 
dispensable condition of any wholesome creation of wealth or of 



146 Conference for Education in the South 

that kind of human well-being which depends upon wealth. It is out 
of their democracy that the American people have piled up the 
riches which even now seem to oppress them. Wealth, however, 
carries with it great dangers, the possibility of public and private 
rottenness. Over against the achievement of disciplined intelligence 
in creating wealth, we can in our land, and must more and more, 
set over the just and generous sense of public duty, the industry and 
capacity in public administration which arise out of an universal 
suffrage animated by intelligence. If it be democracy which sums 
up our chief advantages, shall we not augment our democracy, carry 
it on by education to broader and deeper applications, finding in its 
gospel of popular enlightenment the truly effective sources of discip- 
lined and efficient labor and thence of widespread wealth and human 
happiness ? 

Thus, friends, is it that I see the future of America, thus it is that 
I see the necessity of this noble work in which you are engaged. I 
am not an educator. The technique of education is for me difficult 
and even wonderful. As I learn of the achievements of college pro- 
fessors and teachers of schools, I am amazed. So am I when I learn 
how beautifully and effectually, in modern schools, intelligence is 
matured into power. I cannot say a word to help one teacher in his 
work. But it is for me as a citizen, loving my land as I hope I do, 
believing in its future, it is for me and for those who, like myself, 
are in this presencemere laymen — it is for us to affirm to our fellow- 
citizens these larger results of popular education. If this cause be 
welcomed throughout the country as tonight it is welcomed here in 
the South, if it shall go on gaining strength more and more, if God 
shall enrich us in the future as He now does, with careers like those 
of the men and women gathered here tonight — and if, as God calls 
them from the ranks, now one and now another, to go to their other 
and higher work above, their places shall be fitly filled — then we 
know that the career of wealth and power which lies before the 
American people is to be a career benign, merciful, just, happy. We 
shall then know that the ideal of the American citizen in his public 
relations is to be the ideal of an honest and courageous man insistent 
upon his own rights and equally regardful of the rights of others. 

And then will come to us a civilization which — if it be glorious in 
the stupendous treasure houses which we shall have built and in the 
treasure with which we shall have filled them — will be vastlv more 



Edward M. Shepard 147 

glorious in the manner of individual and family life among Ameri- 
can men and women. The intelligence of the nation, the intelligence 
of each of its communities will find their best achievements in estab- 
lishing the social and public conditions out of which alone can come 
the righteous happiness of crowding mankind. It is the common 
cause of education, not less than the common struggle for equal right 
and equal privilege, which is the true union between North and 
South, East and West. Deeper and stronger than by Constitution 
and laws will this common intelligence of the masses of American 
men bind them together. Our Union is today best made, I believe, 
by the hopeful, powerful, living faith of ours in this cause of popular 
education. Of it we may say even more truly than was once sung 
of the Union itself by a great Am.erican Poet : 

Humanity with all its fears, 

With all its hopes of future years. 

Is hanging breathless on thy fate. 
In spite of wreck and tempest's roar, 
In spite of false lights on the shore, 

Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea, 

Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee. 
Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears, 
Our -faith, triumphant o'er our fears, 

Are all with thee, are all with thee. 

The Chairman : I now propose to ask a number of friends to 
make some remarks. The number that will be called into service 
must depend upon the condensation of thought and expression of 
each. With one or two exceptions they have no organic relation to 
the Conference. They are here looking upon it as observers ; and 
I shall ask a few of these gentlemen to speak. I ought to ask some 
of the ladies. They complain about these journeys through the 
country, that the men have the monopoly. There are some here who 
could, perhaps, talk interestingly about education, but the men have 
the call just now. I want to ask first, that Dr. S. C. Mitchell, of 
Richmond, Va., will make a brief statement to the audience concern- 
ing this Conference. I now have the pleasure of introducing to 
you Dr. Mitchell. 



148 Cofiference for Education in the South 

THE SOUTH AND THE SCHOOL.* 
By Dr. S. C. Mitchell, of Richmond College, Va. 

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: 

The significance of the present educational revival cannot be under- 
stood unless one grasps the specific work which the school in the 
South is set to do. Here something more is demanded of the school 
than general enlightenment and aimless culture. The school is the 
enginery through which great civic forces are achieving their ends. 
It is the social will being vitalized for definite work. It is the plat- 
form of the party of progress. The intense consciousness of this 
constructive purpose in the school has multiplied the powers of the 
teacher, inspirited the minds of the pupils, and evoked unwonted 
enthusiasm upon the part of our people. Education in the South is 
a structural process ; a type of statesmanship, a declaration of prin- 
ciples that embrace the varied interests of democracy ; a struggle of 
aggressive forces that war against reaction, prejudice and ignorance. 
Hence, to gauge the significance of the school, we must know the 
nature of the work which it is expected to do. 

What, then, are the three tasks of the South ? They are economic 
development, national integration, and racial adjustment. Now, all 
these broad policies are to be worked out through education. The 
school is, therefore, the epitome of the South's problems. Let us 
inquire how the school energizes these progressive purposes of the 
Southern people. 

I. ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT. 

Until recently, the South was content simply to grow crops. Two 
facts stand out as regards this exclusive devotion to farming. First, 
the crops were such — cotton, tobacco, rice, sugar — that they could 
be raised with ignorant labor ; and, secondly, agriculture, though 
basal and inviting in many ways, is less remunerative than industrial 
processes, which more especially require initiative, skill, and intelli- 
gence. It came actually to be believed that the South had been 
dedicated by nature to farming alone, while Britain and New 
England enjoyed the monopoly of manufacturing and commerce. 



^Revised in November. 



wS. C. Mitchell 149 

We are now alive to the fact that the South, so far from being 
excluded from these varied sources of wealth, has in its climate, 
crops, forests, mines, and waterpower, peculiar advantages for man- 
ufacturing. Hence the strides it has made within a brief time in 
many industries. Indeed the cotton fibre is a constant challenge to 
the skill and intelligence of the Southern people. To the product of 
the farm we can add incalculably by the process of the factory. 
These fibres of cotton are capable of being worked up into the most 
delicate fabrics, so that the bounds of possible wealth are marked 
only by the limits of our skill and intelligence. Infinite assets lie 
in the hand and head of Southern youth. 

The school is the agency through which we are to come into pos- 
session of these vast economic resources. Improved methods in 
farming, the development of mines and forests, the varied forms of 
manufacturing, and the progress that attends upon the accumulation 
of wealth, all of these benefits will accrue to us from the right train- 
ing of the children in the school. 

II. NATIONAL INTEGRATION. 

The 25,ooo,ocx) people living South of the Potomac River have 
little or no share in determining the councils of the nation. In 
the four great measures of the last decade the South has not played 
a constructive role. I refer to the tarifif, the gold standard, the 
policy of imperialism, and the Panama Canal. When the list of 
ambassadors to the first courts of Europe was announced last spring, 
one looked in vain for a Southern name. When the cabinet was 
chosen, no man south of the Potomac was called to a portfolio in it. 
Even the Federal officers within our own borders are selected with- 
out regard to the will of the majority of our people. Something is 
at fault with a policy that has thus reduced the South to isolation and 
comparative impotence. 

Yet the Southern people are thoroughly national in their sympathy 
and loyalty. The splendid reception accorded President Roosevelt 
on his recent trip through Dixie is an indication of this fact rather 
than its cause. The youth of the South thrill with national feeling. 
No note is struck by an orator in the South today which brings 
heartier response than the appeal to patriotism. The people of the 
South have espoused with ardor the national impulse which beat 



150 Conference for Ediication in the South 

so strong in Washington, Marshall, Jefferson, and Madison. The 
South is simply claiming its birthright. 

What can restore these 25,000,000 people, with sound political 
instincts and potential energies, to their rightful share in the bur- 
dens and benefits of the Federal government? Certainly partisan 
politics, sectional and racial prejudice, and selfish demagogism will 
fail. To attain this desired end we must trust to liberal views, to 
sympathies that embrace all the interests of our common country, 
and to an independency of mind that will beget clear convictions and 
the courage to execute them. The school as the exponent of true 
Americanism is the agency to which we must first resort in extri- 
cating ourselves from a situation no longer tolerable to patriotic men. 

111. RACIAL ADJUSTMENT. 

Racial adjustment is the distinctive task which has been set for the 
South. We may fail in other things and escape notice ; but not so in 
our dealings with the millions of Africans living among us. Some 
time ago, I stood on top of the Wallace Tower, overlooking Stirling 
Castle and the field of Bannockburn. A Scotchman was showing me 
the historic points in that enchanting view, when suddenly he asked 
if I was from the Southern States in America. Upon my replying 
in the affirmative, he turned instantly from those historic scenes to 
inquire of me how we were progressing with the negro problem. 
This issue gripped his thought. The world is in that watch-tower. 
Its scrutiny we cannot escape. Whether we like it or no, mankind at 
large have centered intense interest in our dealings with the black 
man in the South. To that world-mind we must give account of our 
stewardship in this respect. 

A deeper reason underlies mankind's sympathy with the South in 
its crucial test of racial adjustment. Latterly, the highly developed 
European races, which stood as an oasis in the desert wastes of the 
world as a whole, have been brought into vital contact with inferior 
peoples on all the continents and islands. England stands face to face 
with the problem of racial adjustment in Africa, India and Aus- 
tralia. Germany and Erance, Austria and Russia are grappling with 
the same necessity in various quarters of the globe. Accordingly, 
we now divide the world into fourteen educating nations set over 
against countless backward peoples. Such is the far-flung battle 
line of the present hour. Can the European, surcharged with the 
spirit of freedom, order and progress, come into a relation of mutual 



6^. C. Mitchell 151 

helpfulness with the inferior races of mankind ? In the stress of this 
problem, the world looks for suggestion to the South, where the 
racial issue has appeared in its acutest form. If we can on our soil 
work out a rational solution to these racial difficulties, we shall be 
breaking the pathway for all the educating nations of the world. Our 
very responsibility in being thrust into the forefront of this common 
conflict should nerve us to patience, wisdom, statesmanship, and 
heroic initiative. The task which Heaven has appointed us is a 
challenge to the strength, sanity and creative instinct of the Saxon 
for governance and social progress. 

The history of the South is unspeakably tragic. But our sorrows 
are not without compensation. There is an active element in suffer- 
ing. Out of our sad experiences there must emerge a mellowed 
spirit, broad sympathy, and a strength born of struggle. Defeat has 
its moral uses. The discipline of poverty and hardihood which the 
South has been giving its youth is eventuating in capacities and 
aspirations that are prophetic of better things for us and for the 
world. 

Hence it is coming about that the South in the subtle processes of 
its development is begetting a feeling of internationalism. We are 
brought by the daily facts of our own situation to look with interest 
and sympathy upon the attempts of all other peoples, however alien 
to us in custom and political ideal, who are tugging at this problem 
of racial adjustment. It is beginning to appear that -the Southern 
problem is not sectional, not national, but international. The twen- 
tieth century must discover some means of reconciling the interests 
of the strong and weak, the progressive and backward races of man- 
kind. This is a far more difficult task than the reconciliation of 
liberty and order, Avhich in the past century taxed the constructive 
power of the aggressive western nations. The South is placed at 
the bloody angle, aiid masterful must be its endurance and devotion 
to the largest interests of mankind. 

What forces are equal to these things? Only virtue and intelli- 
gence can work out a rational basis for racial adjustment. We dare 
not trust to any agencies less potential, for the solution must come, 
not by power, not by might, but by the spirit of justice, love and 
mutual helpfulness. To energize these constructive activities, we 
must resort to the school. "What a nation wishes in its citizens, it 
must put in its schools." It is through training that the negro is to 



152 Co7iference for Education in the South 

attain to thrift and clean living, love of social order and social 
progress. The school must now supply all those elements of dis- 
cipline which the life of the plantation once furnished ; and, in addi- 
tion, such instruction as will best fit the negro for the right use of the 
larger opportunities and responsibilities into which he has come. 

I talked in Berlin with the keeper of a chimpanzee, who had given 
nearly four years of his life to the experiment of teaching that rude 
being certain words and tricks. He had succeeded. Certainly in our 
stressful circumstances we ought to exhaust the possibilities of edu- 
cation before we come to any final conclusion as to the destiny of 
the negro in America. There should be brought together in the 
school all those elements of discipline which will mould the negro to 
purposes agreeable to the civilization into which he has been thrust. 

The forces represented by the Conference for Education in the 
South are energizing the school by the ministry of money, by the 
ministry of personal effort, and above all by the ministry of spirit. 
As regards money, the school is being strengthened both by in- 
creased public taxation and private contribution. As regards 
personal effort, men and women, endowed with initiative, tact and 
statesmanship, are freely giving their time and energy to the further- 
ance of education. Many noble persons in the North have been 
drawn into this progressive work by the patent opportunity for use- 
fulness and by sheer admiration of the heroic efforts that the South 
is making against illiteracy and its attendant evils. 

It is, however, to the ministry of spirit that we are chiefly in- 
debted as regards the present educational movement. It has lifted 
the problem of the Southern school into national prominence. It has 
brought about fellowship among the workers, heartening all and 
giving direction to the labors of each one. It has made known to us 
the sympathy and appreciation and cooperation of men of all sec- 
tions and parties and creeds with the people of the South in their 
trying situation. This movement has breathed the spirit of charity, 
of conciliation, of brotherhood, of love, human and divine. If it has 
enlisted the practical sagacity of statecraft, it has also shown the 
power of religion, rich in human interest and thrilling with the finest 
purpose to serve. Sacrifice, love of one's kind, national patriotism, 
steadfast endeavor — these qualities appearing in the men and women 
identified with this cause have given it a spiritual impulse and import 
of rare significance. 



Arthur Kinsolving 153 

Mr. Chairman: We have just heard a Mississippi- Virginian ; 
we shall now listen to a Virginia-New Yorker: we would be glad 
to hear a few words from Dr. Arthur Kinsolving. 

Dr. Kinsolving. 

Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen : 

If I did not have a wife among your interesting number, I should 
not hesitate, after the perfect speeches to which we have listened, 
to slip out of this side door. And yet I am glad of an opportunity 
to say a serious word at the end of this most inspiring Conference. 
I was very much honored when Mr, Ogden invited me to join this 
party of elect spirits for the Southward flight, and I have never 
been at school more delightfully for two days in my life. We find 
here the New South arm and arm with the New North. It is not 
one that has changed, but both. We honor the past, but we live 
in the present and we face to the future. 

I am not in the least interested in further explanations of the has 
beens of history, but I am tremendously interested in grappling 
with the national problems of today and tomorrow. And there is 
more hard common sense, more practical usefulness and efficiency 
represented in the organization which has held its meeting in your 
Columbia during the last two days than any other of which I know 
in this country for this purpose. It was well and happily said by your 
distinguished President, who has been a local force, as we young 
men in Brooklyn and New York have felt, for many years, but 
whose great energies and whose great heart could not be bounded 
even by the confines of the greater New York, that our bond is a 
spiritual affinity. We are locked arm and arm in an interest which 
fixes its attention upon the most vital problems of this republic. I 
shall not attempt either to mar or change the splendid definition you 
have just heard from Dr. Mitchell. I hope the reporter got it, and 
that we carry it home with us tomorrow. 

There has never been a period in the last forty years when it 
would have been possible to do the work that lies before the men 
and women of today, and it is an inspiring thing to me, when I 
come back to this old loved Southland, which is my Southland, for 
which I thank God, to see that you are just as practically interested, 
and from the addresses I have heard from this platform, just as 
broadly and nationally interested in the solution of these problems as 



154 Conference for Education in the Sottth 

the men and women of any section of this land. It is a glorious 
thing when the spiritual forces of this great republic can unite their 
energy, their wisdom, their experience, and men can tell each other 
face to face and heart to heart what they know, and what they are 
learning — and God help the man who has come to the time when he 
thinks he knows it all. 

Socrates, many centuries ago, said, when accused of considering 
himself a wise man, with the beautiful modesty of wisdom, "In 
this alone do I think that I am wise, namely, that in what I do not 
know I do not even think I know." 

It is the facts that we want, not heat, or prejudice. As the witty 
George W. Bagby of Virginia, known to some, I am sure, in this 
audience, once said : "When there comes a wrestle between facts 
and fury, f-acts has all underhold." The modem habit is to get at 
the facts and then read the interpretation of the facts; and men 
North and South and East and West are now in search of these 
facts, and are going to have them. And it is a source of deepest 
gratification to a Southern man — the adopted child for some fifteen 
years of the hospitable and true-hearted North, whose happy home 
is by that great port to which all good Southerners come when- 
ever they go North, to see in the midst of the material development 
of our Southland, that spiritual forces are in the ascendant, and 
that the new, universally felt democratic movement which is so 
rapidly knitting these States together is being informed throughout 
by this great ethical and educational spirit. All honor to the chair- 
man of this Conference, and to that splendid group of men, the 
noblest leaders of this country, who have brought this Conference 
about, and who year after year are taking time, which could profit- 
ably be invested in private interests to set forward the most signifi- 
cant, the most permanent, the most hopeful and far-reaching move- 
ment for a unification, not only politically and educationally, but 
religiously as well, that is today apparent in this land. 

The Chairman : We will linger a little longer, and this time, 
we will hear from a Massachusetts man, who has never seen the 
Conference before. I will, therefore, present the Rev. Dr. Samuel 
Crothers of Massachusetts, a man of Cambridge, who in his parish 
has so many teachers of Harvard University in his congregation, 
and has the privilege of administering to their spiritual needs. 



Samuel Crothers 155 

Dr. Crothers. 

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: 

I don't know that I could pose in this presence as a Massachusetts 
man. I had quite a serious person to come to my city from an 
upper Ontario city, who had come down, having- a good deal of 
money, to Boston to improve his mind. He had heard of the state- 
ment that Boston is not a place, but a state of mind, and he wanted 
to find out what that state of mind was. He said he had a partic- 
ular interest in the country, and that he was particularly interested 
in getting a look at the unique type of countenance, as well as at 
the unique type of mind. He had heard that it was highly ungodly, 
and several other things. He looked at me very seriously for a 
little time, and said: "You are a very interesting type, aren't you?" 
and I said : "I thought I was, but that unfortunately I didn't 
really belong, except by adoption, to Massachusetts, and that my 
people came from the South and West." Then he looked at me very 
seriously again, took out his note-book, and said : "Ah ! Southern ! 
That is an interesting type too." Then he looked at me a little more, 
and said : "The Southern type is an interesting type, long, lean, 
lank, very courageous, and inclined to conservatism." 

Now, Mr. President, if I were to sum up in a few words my 
impression of the real meaning of this Conference, I would say it 
is not here to emphasize the necessity for education. All Americans 
have been aware of that necessity from the beginning. It is not 
here to plead for a higher standard of education, that is a matter 
of detail. The real significance of this Conference o"f Americans 
is this, that we all have to come to the point where we feel the need 
of adequate education for the whole people. We want not only edu- 
cation but enough to do the work of America. We want this ade- 
quacy emphasized always. I like to feel that I am one of the typi- 
cal Americans, and that I have the spirit of old Mrs. Means in Ed- 
ward Egleston's "Hoosier Schoolmaster." Mrs. Means said: 
"When we settled in this county we could git timberland for 75 
cents a' acre ; and I says to my old man, 'Old man, says I, it'l never 
be no cheaper 'n 't is now, and while we are a-gettin let's git a 
plenty." Now, that is what we need. Translate that maxim of Mrs. 
Means into dreams of idealism and morality and intelligence, and 
you will have the true American spirit applied to it. While we are 



156 Conference for Education in the South 

getting- education let's get a plenty ; plenty for the needs of our 
people ; plenty for the future of our country. 

I like to think in this connection of one of the great people in a 
little town in Nevada where I once lived. We called him "Old Mul- 
titude." Now, a good many people can drive one horse. I can do 
that myself, depending on the horse ; but "Old Multitude" had a long 
train of ore wagons, and then he had fifteen or twenty yoke of oxen, 
and he took that caravan alone four or five hundred miles across 
the desert, and that is the reason we admired Old Multitude. We 
looked upon him as a statesman, a man who could do that, and so 
when Old Multitude came to town we used to line up in the main 
street and watch him get his multitudinous team under way. I 
never cared for profanity myself, but I never was shocked at Old 
Multitude's profanity. I liked to see him go along, addressing to 
each ox the appropriate malediction. It seemed to do him good. 
And as the maledictions fell in sonorous waves, it seemed to me as 
if he were intoning a liturgy. I have an admiration for a good 
horse, for a good traveler, and for one who can make fast time, and 
I have an admiration for the great universities throughout the world 
which do for the favored young men and women what needs to be 
done for them, which fits them for leadership in the progress of 
the world. But as an American there is something which seems 
to me even more inspiring; and that is the mighty work that has 
been going on in all the public schools all over this land, educating 
every boy and girl in all the duties of democracy. What is re- 
quired of us, friends, North and South, is not agreement, is not 
getting together upon a common basis. We in Cambridge would 
have to get out of the notion if we had stayed in under these cir- 
cumstances. When our town was only about five years old in 
1687, I think it was, old Cotton Mather came to the town, and re- 
ported that "in the town of Cambridge there were eighty-seven 
erroneous opinions." Now, I think that was a pretty fair showing 
for those days — only eighty-seven erroneous notions when there 
were several hundred people and some of these people must have 
had no notions at all. We do not want to get together as a good 
minister brother told his people to get together — "let us continue 
in the safe middle way, halfway between right and wrong." We 
have come together as Americans, but we do not come together as 
members of a section. We come tosfether as individual members 



St. Clair McKelway 157 

of our great American people, pondering the problems of American 
life, contributing to the final solution ; but we need more than any- 
thing else that great virtue of the Romans — magnanimity, great- 
ness of mind ; a mind great enough to take in the marvelous variety 
and broad diversity of this land of ours. Friends, when we come 
together with magnanimity then we come together with profit. Let 
me just give one, illustration of what I mean by magnanimity, and 
then I am done. A friend of mine in Boston fought in the civil 
war, and afterward kept shotguns for sale, and very good shotguns 
at that. He told me of the way in which he had made a life-long 
friendship immediately after the war — about a year. He got a 
letter from a man in the South. This gentleman wrote for a par- 
ticular kind of shotgun and said he understood my friend was the 
only man who could furnish him with that kind of gun, but he was 
sorry, because he hated a Yankee and gave his reasons, and let 
himself out on the subject, as men in those days could. My friend 
said he liked that and said : 'T sat down at once and wrote him 
ten pages and I gave him just as good as he sent me and then I 
said at the end, 'I have been looking through my stock and have 
picked out the best shotgun I have, and I know shotguns, and I 
send it to you with my compliments and my good will.' " A few 
weeks after that he got a letter from his friend saying that it was 
a first-rate shotgun and that he knew a place down South where 
there was a first-rate lot of ducks and would he come down? From 
that day on these men were warm friends and shot ducks together. 

Now, I think there is better business for us than shooting ducks ; 
if we can get a good shot at the corruption and ignorance and im- 
morality of our American life, I think all the old bitterness will 
quickly be forgotten. 

Dr. St. Clair McKelway, of the Brooklyn Eagle, was next intro- 
duced. 

Mr. McKelway. 
Mr. Chairman: 

My friends, I was drafted in the service of this Conference some 
mornings ago. I thought I served my full part in filling out, or in 
bridging in, or in competition with Dr. Alderman's educational sar- 
casm. But tonight Air. Ogden said he wanted me to submit a few 
remarks. I think, and I still think, I have none to submit. He 

11— c. E. 



158 Conference for Education in the South 

pointedly limited me, and those who shall come after me, and by 
them I shall insist on the same compliance, that I shall myself illus- 
trate, that I shall only speak for five minutes. Well, a man who 
cannot talk about nothing for five minutes has learned neither the 
occasional Northern capacity, nor the indestructible, unparalleled, 
unequaled Southern capacity for speaking in public, whether to 
reveal or to conceal what he may have to say. We of the North have 
had a splendid time in Columbia. Some of us have been here for 
the first time. The half has not been told of your hospitality, and 
that which has been told us of your sectionalism, your suspicion, 
your narrowness, and your "Bourbonism" was an absolute- 
misconception and perversity of the truth. 

Now, we may not be able to popularize ourselves all over the 
North — they know us — but we can be able to popularize you all 
over the North where we go, because we have been here three or four 
days and we at least partially know you. There is one splendid thing 
about North — South Carolina — I almost made a fatal mistake. It is 
that the sentiment in this commonwealth for the Educational Board 
— the Society that we represent — that the sentiment for this cause 
falls just so little short of unanimity as to destroy the idea of sus- 
picious collusion. A walled-in mind, in a walled-in town, has uttered 
the only note of dissent. And that wall will be, in intellectual re- 
spects, eventually leveled, and that mind enlarged into the freedom 
which, were this city the "City by the Sea," would indeed make 
"Columbia the Gem of the Ocean." 

Now, we are very grateful to you for your hospitality. We know 
of only one city in the United States in which the matrons are more 
hospitable and the girls more beautiful, and that is the city from 
which each one of us severally comes. Other than that you hold 
the palm, and we know nowhere a school and college so beautiful 
for situation as that which we visited this afternoon. A grand and 
spacious mansion, the beautiful trees, magnificent shrubbery, the 
winding walks, the beautiful skies, were alone exceeded by the 
nymph-life fairy forms that treaded and graced the enclosure. 

Now, you have a great many fine material institutions here. I have 
been confidentially informed that you have an unequaled system of 
State license here, qualified by almost invisible and innumerable 
"speak-easies." I have seen the splendid factories furnishing the 
light, power, and the waterpower. But I tell you that while your 



A. S. Draper I59 

material welfare is gratifying, while the great impulse of our ma- 
terial importance, which is here tested, is gratifying, I tell you that 
old Sir William Hamilton was right when he said that the greatest 
thing on earth is man, and the greatest thing in man is mind, and 
that the forces here, spiritual, social, political, historical, contem- 
porary and future, that make for manhood in the State, in the Union, 
and for mindhood in that manhood in the State, and in the Union, 
are the forces which have behind them the assured benediction of 
God, and which hold in them the eternal preservation of an indissol- 
uble union of the indestructible states. 

Dr. A. S. Draper, Commissioner of Education of the State of 
New York, being introduced by President Ogden, said : 

Dr. a. S. Draper. 

Mr. President, and you, my friends, of the Southern Educational 

Conference: 

I am sure I should have been very glad indeed if my name could 
have been omitted from the list of speakers, because of the lateness 
of the hour, and particularly because we are all waiting to hear the 
concluding speech by his Excellency, the Governor. 

But as the way is open, I am glad to express the pleasure I have 
found in my visit to Columbia and in the proceedings of the Con- 
ference. It is my first visit to Columbia and my first attendance 
upon the Conference. I am bound to tell you that I came with high 
expectations. I have experienced Southern hospitality before, and I 
knew that we would be graciously entertained. I knew you would 
not invite us here unless you were anxious to follow your invitation 
with a sincere and genuine welcome. For the last ten years I have 
been associated with one of the great State ' universities, and that 
has led me to know something more than I otherwise might about 
the State College of South Carolina, located here. I knew that that 
institution, with other educational activities of the city, must have 
cooperated with the natural conditions to develop a society of un- 
usual culture and richness at the South Carolina capital. Yet, Mr. 
President, I am bound to say that some of us surely, and perhaps all 
of us, have had some object lessons in generous hospitality and 
magnificent kindliness which exceeded our expectations and which 
have made us fast friends for life. 



i6o Conference for Education in the South 

I have heard a great deal said from this platform about "prob- 
lems." All earnest people have problems. I do not want you 
to think you have a monopoly of them in the South. In the 
great metropolis of the Union there are educational problems 
quite as serious as any in the Southern States. I suppose 
that in the heart of the City of New York there are three-quarters 
of a million of people who know little or nothing of democratic 
government or of American institutions. They hardly know the 
English language at all. They are as yet foreign to our life and our 
outlook. They are to be absorbed into our citizenship. Their chil- 
dren, and they have lots of them, are to be trained in our schools. 
And those ver}^ people have a considerable part in establishing and 
managing the schools which are to do the work. If educational 
problems made people poor, I suspect that each of us from the North 
would be as poor as any two of you of the South put together. 

We who have been together in this Conference understand each 
other pretty well. We have some form of citizenship in the democ- 
racy of learning. We know something of the fundamental principles 
of that institution. We have come down from the North not to 
parade our intellectual estate or patronize you, but to learn some- 
thing and if possible to give you a word of cheer and enrich our- 
selves by the giving. In the democracy of learning, the only way 
to get gain is to give away as much as you can. About the only 
way one can get much in such work as this is by lifting all the rest 
as much as he can. In the democracy of learning there are no 
political, sectarian, state or sectional lines. We all mingle together, 
to put in our experiences, and our thinking, and to help one another 
all we can. Before the good-fellowship, the energy and the en- 
thusiasm generated in these conferences, difficulties give way and the 
mountains shrink into ^mole hills. 

Educational work in America is unique. This is the land of oppor- 
tunity. It is the national policy that every man and woman, every 
boy and girl, shall have a right to an education suitable to his situa- 
tion. Everyone is to have a chance to lift himself above the situation 
in which he was born. Even more — it is the national belief that it is 
a sound national policy to aid and encourage everyone to make the 
most of himself. The more we can make of each one of the in- 
dividual units the greater and stronger does the nation become. All 
the nations do not accept that. In some lands statesmen are afraid 



Governor D. C. Heyivard i6i 

of it. But we believe in it. It is the plan of the North and it is 
the plan of the South. It is what brings us into common fellowship 
and stirs our common sympathies in our educational conferences. 

I have been especially interested in the reports made to the Con- 
ference by the different State Superintendents of Schools from 
nearly all of the Southern States. I was prepared for a good show- 
ing, for it recently devolved upon me to review, for publication, the 
educational legislation of the last year in all of the States, and from 
that examination I knew that there was an educational revival 
sweeping across the southland, but the definite reports of new build- 
ings, added teachers, enlarged salaries, improved preparation of 
teachers, and all of the accessories of a better school system 
are most gratifying. And let me say that nothing in this 
Conference has stirred my admiration more than the able and heroic 
treatment of the matter of school attendance and of the illiteracy 
consequent upon non-attendance, presented to us by Superintendent 
W. H. Hand, of Chester, in this State. One must face the real facts 
when he would accomplish a great work. He who knows a subject 
of importance to his people and tells them the truth, even though it 
be distasteful, renders the public a distinct service and deserves the 
highest commendation. 

I must not detain you longer. I thank you with all my heart for 
all that my journey to this beautiful old city and to this Conference 
has meant to me, and I trust that the opening year may be sur- 
charged with pleasure and progress for all of you. 

President Ogden : In concluding our delightful convention at 
Columbia, it is particularly appropriate that we hear from Governor 
Heyward, whom I now have the pleasure of presenting. 

Governor Heyward. 

Mr. President, the very pleasant duty Was assigned me of bidding 
welcome to this Conference, and to me unexpectedly, entirely, has 
been assigned the very unpleasant duty of telling them goodbye. 
I told them night before last, in welcoming them, that the invitation 
which we extended a year ago to this Conference was extended in 
all sincerity; and now our regret at seeing these distinguished vis- 
itors leave us is equally sincere. I have listened, Mr. President, to 
most or nearly all of the speeches which have been made from this 



i62 Conference for Education in the South 

platform, and, sir, I have not heard one sentiment utered here which 
has not found a responsive chord in the hearts of the hearers. 

We would like, sir, to see this Conference return to South Caro- 
lina. The story is told that on one occasion a minister — I will not 
say of what denomination — because, like Dr. Low, who spoke last 
night, I suppose I am a politician, I will not say a minister belonging 
to any particular denomination, but a minister visiting a friend in 
the country, and the friend gave that minister all the chickens he 
could possibly lay his hands upon. At the close of his visit the 
minister's little son ran to his father in a great hurry and said to him : 
"Give me a drum stick, give me a drum stick, as quick as you can !" 
The father said: "What is the matter?" He said: "Father, the 
minister went out swimming, and has lost his teeth, and I want the 
drum stick for bait." 

Now, my friends, if there is any bait which we can use in South 
Carolina to have this Conference return here again, we will be glad 
to fish for them with that bait. We feel that every word uttered 
here, as I have said, has found a responsive chord. We South Car- 
olinians today are not thinking so much of our past, great and glori- 
ous as that past has been, as we are thinking of the present and of 
the future. No people in the South today, Mr. President, take a 
deeper interest in education than do the people of South Carolina. 
Last summer, while attending the army maneuvers at Manassas, 
I was riding over the field looking for one of the two regiments from 
South Carolina. As in real warfare, no one that I met seemed to 
know what was going on. I made a number of inquiries, and could 
ascertain no information. Finally I passed an officer of the United 
States army going down the dusty road. I said to him : "Sir, can 
you tell me where I can find the First Regiment of South Carolina?" 
Pointing over the fields to some woods in the distance where some 
firing could be heard, he said : "Go in that direction, Sir, there is 
something doing over there, and wherever there is something doing 
you are apt to find South Carolina." 

I listened last night to those eloquent words from the South Caro- 
linian when he spoke of compulsory education in South Carolina. 
I was proud that he said that the Governor of South Carolina was 
ready to sign a bill for compulsory education. And I only hope, my 
friends, that I will have the opportunity to sign that bill. 

I have discovered, my friends, one thing about these gentlemen. 



. Edwin A. Alderman 163 

I don't know what to call them, we have been calling them so many 
names ; I have discovered one thing about them, these distinguished 
gentlemen from the North — they are just like any one else; and 
if they will come to South Carolina again, they will always find 
the word salve — welcome — right above the front door. They will 
find the latchstring on the outside. They will always find a warm 
welcome in South Carolina. 

The Chairman : Numerous requests have come that Dr. Alder- 
man should be heard. I promised Dr. Alderman that I would not 
call upon him, for the reason that he is suffering from a very severe 
cold ; and while I should be delighted with all the rest to hear a few 
words from him, I could not under the statement that he made to 
me; but now I am not in the case and it is a matter between you 
and Dr. Alderman. 

Dr. Alderman. 

Ladies and Gentlemen: 

I should be indeed lacking in sensibility if I did not appreciate this 
kind and generous call to me, at this very late hour. I am reminded 
of an incident that happened at a great college banquet the other 
night when a gentleman had been eloquently speaking in behalf of 
the University at which the banquet was held, and had ended his 
speech with these strong words : "Let us pull off our coats and get 
to work." Just after his speech Dr. Remsen from Johns Hopkins 
was called on, about a quarter to one o'clock, tO' speak tO' the sub- 
ject of Science. As Dr. Remsen arose he said this: "The dis- 
tinguished gentleman has said : 'let us pull off our coats and get to 
work;' as for me (looking at the clock), I am ready to go even 
further than that." But, my friends, I feel the inspiration of this 
evening, and I have it in my heart to say, since you have called me 
out, just these serious words, because it is a serious time. To me 
the most impressive spectacle to be seen under the sun is the effort 
of this great tumultuous democracy of ours to become rich and 
powerful, and efficient, and at the same time, just a happy and a 
free people; and the most impressive spectacle of that great effort 
is the effort of this portion of this democracy which has known so 
mucW of serious sorrow and suffering, to readjust itself proudly 
and self-reliantly to the modern world, without loss of ancient lova- 



164 Conference for Education in the South 

bleness and charm, and with access of new power, mobility and vigor 
and freedom. 

There are two impressive visions that come to my mind this mo- 
ment in that process of re-adjustment. One occurred almost a gen- 
eration ago, when a great citizen of Massachusetts, that great com- 
monwealth, which has taught this Union such a lasting lesson of 
moral persistence and splendid efficiency, looked down over this land 
of ours — George Peabody by name. 

You do well to applaud him, for, though we had stood to him for 
years as enemies in battle, he thought of us with love and with 
tenderness, and brotherhood. His religion indeed was not the re- 
ligion of the Cossack, but the religion of Christ. He thought that 
we needed his help, and he established that great Peabody fund, and 
gathered around him a group of great Southern men, and great 
Northern men to administer it. There were great names on that 
Board. The philosophy of that great deed was this : A Northern 
man, rich in power, looked out upon his people and beheld a country 
beaten with red stripes of war, and he forgot everything except the 
desire to serve. It was strength helping weakness. And so the years 
went by, and a few years ago another group of men gathered together 
under a different set of circumstances to do the same kind of work. 
Now it is not strength helping weakness, but strength joining hands 
with strength triumphant over difficulties. 

I declare to you I know of no more idealistic thing in our history 
than the coming of the present Conference composed of men of the 
great business world, of the great commercial spirit, from the field 
of trade and commercialism to the fields of spirit and of idealism. 
I have no faith in the talk that this country is not forever moving 
to the good. My faith is optimism. This mighty economic life of 
ours could no more proceed out of mere cunning and greed, and lust 
of gold, than some great splendid business could be built up upon 
audacity and advertising. The main, persistent forces in our re- 
public have been idealistic. May I tell you that the types of the 
two most persistent forces to me in our national life are Alexander 
Hamilton (and now I have just got to get it out) and Thomas Jef- 
ferson. I showed rare restraint yesterday when Dr. Low and Dr. 
McElway flung Hamilton in my face two or three times in the col- 
lege, and I forgot to say a word about Thomas Jefferson ; »but I 
dare not to go back to Charlottesville without speaking that mighty 



Edwin A. Alderman 165 

name. I always thought of these two men in this way : Hamilton 
a young- boy, beautiful as young David in the sheep fold, ruddy and 
glorious in his young boyhood, standing upon the steps of old Kings 
College, now Columbia College in New York, defending old Dr. 
Cooper, the president of the college, from an angry mob ; not because 
he loved old Dr. Cooper, quite the contrary ; but because in his own 
heart there dwelt a passion for order and efficiency and hatred of 
anarchy. 

I always think of Jefferson as an old man disillusioned of glory, 
standing upon his hill dreaming, planning, working dauntlessly and 
watching with patient eyes the slow-rising walls of the university 
which he believed would work for the training of men, to give that 
new wide-expanded hope of democracy that glowed in his heart a 
chance to establish itself beautifully and splendidly upon this young 
continent. These are the two forces we have working here. 

Now, my friends, to conclude. Nations, like individuals, have 
their moods ; their moods of mind and feeling. I believe this mood 
of ours is an unselfish mood ; it is a mood of consecration. It is 
such a mood as worked upon old Ben Franklin when he suggested 
to the warring members of the Constitutional Convention that they 
might do well to go down upon their knees ; it is such a mood as 
visited the mind of Edmund Burke when appealing to English 
national honor and for human freedom in these colonies. It was 
such a mood as overcame the soul of Rudyard Kipling when in 
glory hour of his great nation's life he sang that solemn song of 
warning to humanity. We talk much of power, of power in machin- 
ery, of power in business, of power in organization. When one 
crosses that great river at New York city, and sees that amazing, 
that almost astounding spectacle of material power — one stands in 
amazement. But I want to tell you just a thing or two about 
another sort of soul power — the energy that moves mankind and 
makes history. Again and again there comes into my office, and 
into the offices of other college men, some young man from some 
out-of-the-way place. There is about him something of character 
and aspiration and determination giving dignity to his callowness 
and greenness. There shines in his eyes a pitiless enthusiasm for 
learning and unlimited capacity for work. I have a talk with him ; 
he signs his matriculation card and goes out, and in a few months 
we see him again, and see that something rich and strange has come 



i66 Conference for Education in the South 

into his personality and into his speech, and in just a few short 
years I have seen him — stand upon some platform like this — at home 
in the world of thought and culture, a shapely, comely man, stand- 
ing up before his peers with his heart and brain and soul ready for 
human service, fit to beget children in a democracy, and to illustrate 
in himself the dignity and majesty of republican citizenship. That, 
too, is power. 

Mr. Ogden : The final words have all been said. It is not neces- 
sary for your Chairman to make any feeble attempt to supplement 
them. Your hearts have gone out to us, and ours have responded 
to you. In a few minutes this assembly will dissolve, and for those 
of us who pass on our way elsewhere, your beautiful city, which it 
has been our privilege to see at the glorious time of the year when 
opening nature is making everything so beautiful, your stately and 
imposing capitol ; your beautiful residences ; your great industries, 
all photographed upon our minds, leave round them a hallowed 
memory, another link in the golden chain of associations of the 
Conference for Education in the South. We came here with hearts 
uplifted, with purposes strengthened, with resolutions exalted into 
a larger encouragement, and in this spirit I ask you to pause a mo- 
ment, please, and with this spirit I pronounce the Eighth Conference 
for Education in the South dissolved ; and will ask all reverently to 
rise, and receive from Bishop McVickar, of the diocese of Rhode 
Island, the benediction. 

BENEDICTION. 

The blessings of God our Maker — Father, Son and Holy Ghost, 
be upon us, and remain with us, forever, amen. 



NOTICE. 



THE NINTH CONFERENCE FOR EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH WILL BE 
HELD AT LEXINGTON, KENTUCKY^ THE LATTER PART OF APRIL, I906. 
THE PRECISE DATE WILL BE ANNOUNCED LATER THROUGH THE PRESS. 



